Kahawa

by Donald E. Westlake

In the Uganda of Idi Amin, a band of mercenaries and expatriates plan to hijack a mile-long train carrying six million dollars worth of Ugandan coffee

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Crime, Thriller, Humor, Uganda, Adventure

458 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008) was one of the most prolific and talented authors of American crime fiction. He began his career in the late 1950's, churning out novels for pulp houses—often writing as many as four novels a year under various pseudonyms such as Richard Stark—but soon began publishing under his own name. His most well-known characters were John Dortmunder, an unlucky thief, and Parker, a ruthless criminal. His writing earned him three Edgar Awards: the 1968 Best Novel award for God Save the Mark; the 1990 Best Short Story award for "Too Many Crooks"; and the 1991 Best Motion Picture Screenplay award for The Grifters. In addition, Westlake also earned a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1993.

Westlake's cinematic prose and brisk dialogue made his novels attractive to Hollywood, and several motion pictures were made from his books, with stars such as Lee Marvin and Mel Gibson. Westlake wrote several screenplays himself, receiving an Academy Award nomination for his adaptation of The Grifters, Jim Thompson's noir classic.

Some of the pseudonyms he used include
•   Richard Stark
•   Timothy J. Culver
•   Tucker Coe
•   Curt Clark
•   J. Morgan Cunningham
•   Judson Jack Carmichael
•   D.E. Westlake
•   Donald I. Vestlejk
•   Don Westlake

Reviews

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*
Though I am counting this as a "mystery", it isn't really - it is a crime story. While the heist plot was interesting, what made the book worth reading for me was the look at 1977 Uganda & Kenya.

[Saliotthomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly donald Westlake is more than just a thrillers writer,and he show it again with a story in deep black Africa where a band of mercenaries decide to steal the coffe year train and make disapear tousandS of toneS of coffe.

The story is great,all the caractere a perfectly depicted,different; not just adventure but also complexe poloticaly.
Until the end you never guess,

[Christopher Taylor]

During the brutal and evil regime of Idi Amin, a group of international criminals plan to steal a train full of coffee, organized by international financiers and market moguls to corner the market. How dos it work out? I don't know, I never finished the book.

Very slow and unlikable, filled with unpleasant characters and bad situations that keep spinning off to worse things. Its glacially delayed, with each step of the coffee theft feeling like real time day after day of not much really happening and new characters introduced to make you like the existing ones even less.

Westlake usually writes tight, entertaining books with enjoyable if rogueish characters, but this attempt to write a historical suspense novel falls short of his usual talent.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is far from my favorite Donald Westlake book and is NOT one I’d recommend to those newly acquainted with his writing. That said, there is still much to like. The setting, scheme and secondary characters are all first rate. I think it’s main flaw is that two of its primary characters, Lew and Ellen, aren’t all that interesting and yet we spend quite a bit of time with them.

[Pedro L. Fragoso · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of the following is either true or likely true:

“KAHAWA is marvelous.” —Playboy
    “Engrossing. . . . Great fun.” —Library Journal
    “Westlake is a real pro.” —Booklist
    “The master of the rolling scam.” —James Grady
    “Donald Westlake keeps showing me people I’d like to meet.” —Rex Stout
    “Such a splendid hugger-mugger that if you don’t like it, there’s something wrong with you. . . . No reader that I will ever want to meet should dare complain.” —John Leonard, New York Times
    “A stunner, a real stunner, the ultimate in the genre of the very hard-boiled thriller. . . . A brilliantly plotted narrative . . . at times ironically funny, at others sadistic, this could be described as impure Joseph Conrad, plus a wild splash of H. Rider Haggard.” —Los Angeles Times
    “Westlake’s grandest caper novel . . . KAHAWA is super whizbang; like a heat-seeking missile, it will unerringly streak to the larcenous side of your heart, and warm it.” —Detroit News
    “A dilly of a thriller . . . a story with more twists than a mamba . . . KAHAWA is good to the last page.” —New York Daily News
    “A remarkable novel. . . . Devastating portraits, a wealth of political and historical insights into the African continent, and a hell of a lot of fun.” —Robert Ludlum
    “This fine, fat, memorable novel is Westlake’s best yet.” —John D. MacDonald
    “Spellbinding. . . . Antic ingenuity and wit . . . delivers an emotional wallop that should win Westlake his widest audience yet.” —Cosmopolitan
    “The acknowledged master of the humorous adventure novel . . . here takes a new and unexpected turn into Evelyn Waugh country and introduces pain to the laughter.” —Martin Cruz Smith
    “Thoroughly engrossing. . . . A wonderfully executed, typically excellent Westlake piece.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
    “Funny, sexy, violent, and jammed with authentic atmosphere. . . . One of Westlake’s best. . . . It’s a gem.” —Publishers Weekly
    “A character-full, fast action yarn.” —Houston Chronicle
    “Donald E. Westlake [is] the Noel Coward of crime. . . . He displays an excellent ear for bitter-salty urban humor, composed of equal parts raunch and cynicism.” —Chicago Sun-Times
    “There are few if any who do caper novels better than Westlake.” —Mystery News
    “Westlake tosses the sand of petty frustrations and human fallibility into the well-oiled machine of the thriller.” —TIME
    “Westlake is among the smoothest, most engaging writers on the planet.” —San Diego Tribune

On the whole, this was amazingly fantastic: characters, Idi Amin, plot, caper, scope, rhythm, literary style, Africa, Africans, heroes, men, women—fantastic. Fantastically amazing. There were a few irritating details, like Grossbarger’s patois, and a few others that some readers might find irritating but I actually enjoyed, such as the occasional info dump. By the final pages, I was gripped by two conflicting expectations: the fate of the characters and their adventures, and the fear that Westlake might spoil the ending. But no—he didn’t. It was all immensely satisfying, thank the stars in the southern hemisphere. I really, truly loved this ambitious, if slightly flawed, masterpiece of genre fiction. This cries out for a movie! Alas, not even an audiobook exists; reality keeps refusing to make sense.

Quote about the book

Since both sex and violence can be distracting, I usually depict them sparingly, trying mostly to get my effects by allusion and implication. Not so in Kahawa; the book demanded a stronger approach. Of course, when it was published, I got complaining letters, and their general tenor was, “I’ve always liked your books, and so has my teenage son/daughter, but how can I show him/her this book with all this graphic sex in it?” Five hundred thousand dead; bodies hacked and mutilated and tortured and debased and destroyed; corridors running with blood; and nobody complained about the violence. They complained about the sex. Ah, such wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beasties.

Sex in the book

“Just fuck!” she yelled, and reached back to slap his thigh just as hard.
    “Damn damn damn damndamndamn damn KEE-RIST !”
    But then they couldn’t find tissues or towels or anything at all. Rolling around on the swampy bed in the humid night, his come tickling her legs, she said, “Where in God’s name are we?”
    “Africa,” he said.
    “Jesus Christ.” She said.

Neither her expression nor her intentions changed, but in the back of her mind the fear lived, sending out little tendrils through her thoughts like the red lines from a gangrenous wound. “You know who owns me, Frank,” she said, trying neither to show the fear nor to blame him for it. “I own me, the way you own this house. And if I ever decide to give you a tour, I’ll let you know.”

He thought he was dying; he thought he’d exploded, had a stroke, had a heart attack, was already dead. There had never been an orgasm like it, something beyond pleasure, even beyond pain, extending into some alternative universe of inside-out wrenching unreality.

Dear Lord. He risked a look at her; how could he give that up? Almost without his collaboration, his hand stole forward to touch that breast. “You are something,” he said.

More quotes from the book

“When the first Englishman arrived—his name was Speke—he met with a kabaka called Mutesa, and gave him gifts, the way the white men always did. Give you some cloth and beads and shit, and then take your country.”

One of Chase’s grievances was that he himself was Canadian, which was one small step from being nothing at all.

From the dankness of London to the austere aridity of Tripoli to the tropical breeze of Entebbe was a journey from Purgatory through Hell to Heaven. Meteorologically speaking.

The soldier pulled open the door, and a most incredible stench poured out, with the force of a physical punch to the stomach. A compound of rot, of human feces, of blood, of filthy unwashed bodies and filthy clothing, of urine and spoilage and death and fear. Lew stepped back against the opposite wall, appalled, and his two escorts laughed at him.
    At first the interior was merely a sort of writhing darkness, the mouth and throat of some hideous monster exhaling that stench, but then the soldier hit a light switch beside the doorway and a fluorescent ceiling light came on in there, and the look of the place was even worse than the smell. (…)
    In the dark he could hear them murmuring around him. The smell in here was violent in its intensity, and made more so by the darkness; it made him want to vomit, but at the same time was so thoroughly foul that it dried his mouth and throat and made vomiting impossible. (…)
    Bishop Kibudu explained some of this to Lew, as the hours went on. In a place of such horror, calm conversation seemed to help, to keep the brain from exploding. The bishop described the church he and his parishioners had built at Bugembe, a suburb of Jinja. In return, Lew described Alaska to the bishop, who had never been to the Western Hemisphere. The bishop told church anecdotes involving weddings, the visits of foreign clergymen, comical mix-ups at picnics. Lew told cleaned-up mercenary anecdotes: travel on rafts on the Congo River, rifles shipped with the wrong-caliber bullets. And every second of every minute of every hour was intolerable. And of course there were the lice.

She came smiling and waving across the stubby new grass, a tall and slender woman with short dark-blond hair and a long angular face that combined beauty with efficiency in a way that left Lew helpless with desire.

Lew had been only one of the reasons Ellen had agreed to this iffy voyage. Africa was the other. She had worked in both North and South America as well as in Southeast Asia, she had seen Japan and parts of Europe as a tourist, but the entire African continent was new to her. She was fascinated by the thought of it, a fascination only slightly dampened by the cholera and yellow-fever and typhus shots they’d had to take before departure, and the supply of malaria pills they were supposed to take—one every Tuesday—not only during their entire stay in Africa but for two full months thereafter. It was beginning to seem that Africa was not only as exotic but also as hospitable to the human race as Mercury or Jupiter.

In the last sixty hours, they had flown by commercial airliner from Alaska to Seattle, and from there to New York, where they’d had a three-hour layover before the overnight Alitalia flight to Rome. In Rome they’d taken a hotel room near the airport for the day, followed by the final overnight flight to Nairobi, arriving at eight in the morning. They had crossed thirteen time zones and had spent twenty-three hours in the air. And now was Ellen expected to fly a plane she’d never operated before over land she’d never seen before in a country and a continent and with an air-traffic system that were all new to her?

The main difference between men and women, Ellen thought, is that men have so much simpler emotions; they can’t deal with complexity.

“No, no. It’s all fuck-fuck-fuck with men, but the rest of their lives is women. In India it’s the same, and here, and everywhere you find our Indian culture. The young man marries, he brings his young wife home; right away the important relationship is between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law. They talk together; they live together; they have secrets together; they are the true loving pair. And then the young wife sees her husband, and she says, ‘Oh, yes, fuck-fuck-fuck, make babies, now go away,’ and she wipes herself off and goes back to the mother-in-law and they talk secrets together and giggle behind their hands.” He drank beer, and became so extremely sad that the smile was hardly visible at all. “It is terrible to see your culture from the outside,” he said. “Very disheartening.”

There were Playmate centerfolds on the white walls, of course, plus a poster of two ducks screwing in midair over the caption “Fly United.”

Gathering speed, black smoke and white steam angling back against the blue sky, Arusha and her children ran north toward Mbale, twenty-five miles away.

He was a craftsman of death, and he was good at his craft.

Even to remember Amarda now, much less to remember her erotically, showed how little he could trust himself. “I am a fool,” he muttered, glowering out the windshield, “and I do have to go on living with me.”

If you learn how to do an acceptable job while letting your boss take all the credit, you can work for any government in the world.

Ellen relaxed her grip on the stick and looked at her reflection in the mirror she’d mounted on the post between windshield and door. Lew sat back and grinned, stretching luxuriously. The sun shone, and all was right with the world.

“Bridge ahead,” the bishop announced. “Open the package now, and close your lid.”
    “Right.”
    Lew opened the package, and his nostrils slammed shut. His hair curled, his lungs became corrugated, his tongue died, his teeth shriveled and went back up into his gums. The skin under his eyes turned to leather. His ears fell off.

Outrage at human inconstancy had long since faded in Sir Denis to pragmatic weariness; one dealt with the human race not as it should be but as it was. (…) He possessed four qualities unlikely to be found anywhere else: he was knowledgeable, trustworthy, dispassionate, and discreet.

Godfrey Juma was a different kettle of fish, an older, grizzled, no-nonsense sort of man, who took chai when it came his way because bribery was part of the world order, but who nevertheless found pride and dignity in knowing his job and doing it well.

Idi Amin was drunk. He had become drunk at lunch, and now he was getting more drunk. Seated on a wooden chair, holding in his left fist a third-full quart bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label scotch whisky, he stared blearily at the face of the colonel who—he well knew, he well knew—had schemed to bring together the entire Langi tribe in a plot against him. “You were very bad, Colonel,” Amin said, and waggled a reproving finger in the colonel’s face.
    The colonel’s eyes and mouth were closed. Small clumps of dried blood under his nose had made it seem he had an imperfect moustache. The colonel had been dead for four months and his body had long ago been thrown to the crocodiles in the Nile at Owen Falls Dam, but his head was still here, in the freezer in the Botanical Room at the Old Command Post, one of Amin’s lesser dwellings in Kampala. Three other heads of former enemies were in here at the moment, plus two human hearts, but it was to the colonel that Amin directed his reproches. (…)
    There was a catchphrase Amin used with his closest confidants, which meant that the person should first be tortured—not for information, but as punishment or for exercise—and then murdered. He used the phrase now: “Give him the VIP treatment.”
    “Good,” Juba said.
    Amin added, “But save the head.”

Even success, though, had its bitter taste. Amin is taking millions out of this rotten country, Chase thought, and I’m taking thousands. Big fish, little fish. Ah, well; we all eat as much as we can.

Young Mr. Balim had been made very uneasy by the falling men. He himself was a man who had never known firm ground beneath his feet, so these reminders of how easily he too could drop away and cease to exist, never to matter again, never having mattered in the first place, troubled him and gave him a nervous sensitivity to his own frailty, surrounded by dangers. (…) He was a ghost of the British imperial era, which had brought both his grandfathers from India to work on this very railroad, leaving behind both the railroad and the men, like a half loaf of bread and a shopping list abandoned on the kitchen counter after the family has moved. Beyond that he was a ghost of Uganda; in this nation of his birth he was under a death sentence for the simple crime of having lived.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a clever plot and an interesting setting in terms of location and the time (recent past). The brutality of Idi Amin's regime and the general chaos of the end of colonialism and the early days of emerging nationhood in east Africa. The characters were somewhat flat and the plot fairly predictable. West lake has written much better stuff.

[Schuyler Krizay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Believe it or not this is my very first Westlake novel I read.

I am aware that this is very outside of what he would normally write. A lot more geo-political, and racial / sexual commentary.

The story is pretty absurd, but its also compelling, and definitely a fun easy read. Whenever you hear someone say "rogue's gallery" I think the cast of characters in this book certainly meet the criteria. Mercenaries, thiefs, political animals, backstabbers, rib stabbers, neck stabbers. Its essentially a heist book but the heist itself kind of takes a backseat to all of the political maneuvering of its wide array of people holding varying degree's of autonomy and power within Adi Amins "royal court" so while the political players, and big business players are trying to arrange a massive coffee deal to supplement the worldwide shortage due to frost killing off the stock in Brazil. People are flying in from all parts to try to profit off this small african country whos dictator is like a bad WWE villain or bond villain, yet real.

While the real deal makers all seek their own self interest and bribe there way through the thing. Another deal is being done on the side which inevitably leaves a trails of broken hearts, broken trains, and bullet dodging airplanes. The novel does a good job keeping the reader guessing which side each player is really on and its clear in Idi Amin's Uganda deals get done the old fashioned way, threats and violence or padded envelopes.

3.5*/5

For fans of Ross Thomas, Elmore Leonard

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

KAHAWA by Donald E. Westlake - my first time reading this: Westlake is one of my favorite novelists, and this book has a good reputation (I’ve seen it praised as among his best work), but I had never read it because it seemed so off-model for him. I had a mixed reaction to it: very much underwhelmed at first, with the sense that Westlake was straining under the (self-imposed) responsibility of assaying a more serious topic, though I found it increasingly compelling as it went along. Still, I couldn’t help thinking throughout that any given Parker novel was, in a perhaps ineffable way that still seemed to genuinely matter, more “serious” than the story here. I think this is often the case with popular writers (or “genre” writers), especially of Westlake’s generation: underestimating the strength of their best work, because it doesn’t fit someone else’s standard of what makes for “good writing”.

[Spiros · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Bank Shot, the Dortmunder Gang has to steal a bank to rob the bank; in this ripping yarn, a much more heterogeneous band of rogues has to steal a train to perform a train robbery. Not as funny as a Dortmunder caper: the story is set in the Uganda of Idi Amin Dada (or to give him his full panoply of titles, "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular"); there are nevertheless some moments of sublimely sly humor.

[Diogenes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is nothing like the Parker and Dortmunder stories of the Westlake we've come to know and love. There's much more simile and metaphor, some nearly poetic descriptions of atmosphere and place, some explicit sex scenes, and a great deal of historical truth in this story and it's much longer than we've come to expect from him. That said, it may be one of his very best novels. And in this later printing, there's an 1995 introduction by the author that will delight his fans.

[Charles Pehlivanian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Might be the best mystery I've read, and I've read a *lot*. This is top-shelf. The setting, the character development, and some of the most memorable, vivid scenes that I can remember reading. All set against a backdrop of the abject corruption that defined the regime of Idi Amin. This is not one of his comedic works - although those are also awfully good. I read it twice, may read again, but first a pause.

[Mark Miano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Don Westlake's writing a lot. I've read most of the Parker novels and a few other odds and ends. I can't remember how I heard about this book, but was able to find it at DCPL. It's a comic novel that involves a hijacked trainload of coffee. The characters feel dated, but the plot is pure Westlake. If you like his Dortmunder series, this is for you.

[Donald · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kahawa is the word for coffee in Swahili. This book is the fictional account of a real event - a group of white mercenaries, in Uganda, while it was under Idi Amin, stole a railroad train a mile long, full of coffee, and made it disappear.

Part One, the background of the story and the set-up of the heist, seemed relentlessly long. As are the following three parts! If I were to re-read this, and I wouldn’t, I would skip from one to five, and not miss a thing. I would suggest you do the same, fellow reader! Because the ending is pretty good, and from the train robbery on, the book flows better. I just don't think the story itself was worth reading nearly 500 pages.

[Mike Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply unlike anything else Westlake wrote. This is an adventure story, plain and simple, set in Uganda when Idi Amin was on power. The characters are believable ( barely), the plot likewise, and the action fast and furious..
I was sorry to finish this.

[J.D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A trio of American adventurers, in conjunction with a vicious, corrupt government official and a slick Asian businessman, plan to steal the entire coffee crop of Idi Amin's Uganda, along with the train that's carrying it to market. Ambitious, to be sure, and it takes a writer as talented as Westlake to pull it off this brilliantly.

Donald E. Westlake is probably best known for his comic heist novels. This is a heist story alright, but since it takes place mostly in late-70's Uganda, it's a good bit darker than his Dortmunder books, at times getting downright horrific. The story's engrossing, with just the right amount of double and triple crosses, reversals of fortune, and cliffhanger escapes to keep you turning the pages, especially near the end. There's one moment right near the end that had me rolling my eyes, but other than that, it's prime Westlake.

[Brooks Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one was slow to get going, but once I made it about 20-25% of the way through, the plot picks up and I eagerly zoomed through the rest. In Kahawa, Westlake details the mechanics of a coffee heist (the perps make off with not only the coffee, but also the entire train used to transport it) and imagines what the horrifying regime of Idi Amin must've been like. According to the foreword, this book was extensively researched and the main plot is based on fact, making the entire book seem very real. Kahawa is grittier than other Westlake books I've read, but I did enjoy it immensely. I appreciate him switching the third-person perspective from chapter to chapter, adding a dash of the trademark Westlake humor here and there.
Recommended for history buffs, people who like crime novels and anyone who appreciates great writing.
This was a digital loan from my local library.

[Jordan McPeek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Big heist novel about stealing the entire Ugandan coffee crop from Idi Amin - that's enough right there to suck me in. I don't think I've ever read a novel set in east Africa, so it had that freshness right off the bat. It's not just another novel about a serial killer or a bank robber or a mafioso in the big city. Big cast of characters, all sharply drawn, all with different motivations and competing plans. Good fun seeing it all come together and fall apart and head off in all directions, like fireworks that head everywhere except up. A bit of history and unobtrusive political comment gave me an introduction to Amin's Uganda as an added bonus. Grittier and more violent than Westlake's Dortmunder series but not grim.

[Nigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Westlake's big blockbuster commercial international thriller: a heist with aspects much too dark and horrible for Dortmunder but an adventure too exuberant and freewheeling for Parker; instead we get one of those unique Westlake creations full of sly humour and with but with horror and violence lurking not far into the shadows. Mercenaries and corrupt operators and ousted Asian businessmen conspire to rob Idi Amin of a train full of coffee. It's a big, complex operation full of many moving parts with plenty of opportunities for betrayal and setbacks and a nasty price to pay when things do go wrong. Fantastic characters, intricate plotting, hair-raising situtations and unusually, for Westlake, graphic sex, all combine in a pot-boiler executed with rare craft and competency.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A beach read set in Uganda--who knew? This was actually better than I thought it would be. It does have a bit of the white hero thing going on (the author is a western writer) and it's rather implausible (IMHO) but it was entertaining all the same. A motley bunch of mercenaries, businessmen, government officials and people with grudges against Idi Amin plot to steal Amin's $6 million coffee train. Really. So, if you're looking for a fun but trashy novel about Uganda to read, well, this is probably the only one.

[Gene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't read this book expecting a Dortmunder caper. It's not funny. True, there is Englishman . . . . It is an excellent caper novel, but also reflects on issues of personal and political behavior, sometimes crudely. Idi Amin Dada Idi is one of the characters. Settings are mainly Uganda and Kenya, with some scenes in England and Alaska. It is a richly textured textured fiction. Note that explicit sex and violence are integral to the story.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you enjoy capers where a group of shady characters unites to pull a big heist of some kind, start with this oddly titled novel by Donald Westlake. "Kahawa" is Swahilli for "coffee" and this novel, set in late 1970s Uganda, is how a group of rogues attempts to steal an entire trainload of coffee from Idi Amin. It's marvelous fun.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly light adventure set in an intensely grim real life period, Idi Amin's reign in Uganda. Probably wraps up a little too neat, but there's such a depth of real life detail that Westlake gets for the region, from a lakeside village that could have been a contender due to the railways, only to settle for being a smuggler haven.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny adventure. Not one of Don Westlake's Dortmunder series (which are all worth reading), this one feels like a serious story. But you can feel the 'rolling of the eyes' comments from the beginning. Don Westlake is a lot of fun to read.

[Denise M.]

AKA: Alan Marshall, Alan Marsh, James Blue, Ben Christopher, Edwin West, John B. Allan, Curt Clark, Tucker Coe, P.N. Castor, Timothy J. Culver, J. Morgan Cunningham, Samuel Holt, Judson Jack Carmichael, Richard Stark, Donald E. Westlake

[Terry Cornell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read. Fiction in a historical setting. Some parts seem implausible, and it starts slow setting the background and introducing the characters. The pace picks up mid-book, and the excitement builds. I think it would make a great movie!

[Jeremy Hornik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Caper novel set in Uganda. A lot more expansive-feeling than the Parker novels, which are so tightly focused. There's a fair amount of comedy. Very enjoyable, slightly dated... feels like I should be reading it in a paperback version at someone's beach house in 1985.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently reread this, which is probably my favorite Westlake. Highly recommended if you're interested in Africa (especially East Africa).

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

funny, but not as funny as some of his others because of the seriousness of the topic - he says as much in his introduction. Well written and very good characters.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find that I enjoy historical novels or novels depicting different ways of life. The caper was enjoyable, the glimpse into another way of life was intiguing

[Sal · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fictional story written in the context of real events. A different kind of Westlake book, but a great change of pace.