Oil Slick

The shortest of the three Destroyer novels, proper, that I've read, and better for it.

Appallingly racist, as usual, with offensive stereotypes deployed against Arabs, Jews, the French, and American liberals[1][2] (not that, as an American liberal, those upset me). But the two improvements are that much of the information for the first two has been cribbed from John le Carré books (which is smart in that if you're going to steal, steal from somebody good), and it rolls. Once a certain point is reached, it's tough to put the book down.

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[1] "If liberals love people in large masses, [that] is the price they pay [in order] to hate people individually." 2 points, there: I had to clean it up. As with most semi-clever show more things in these books, a good editor could have added some clarity. Also, I'm not sure he's wrong, or right. It's an interesting idea. I've highlighted a few other lines to give an idea of the prose, both good and bad.

[2] Mind, the book is also largely about the villainy of the oil companies, so it's definitely coming from what is now a leftist position. Of course, in the seventies, "oil companies good" was not the pillar of Republicanism that it is today. show less