Books: Kahawa By Donald E. Westlake, Part One

I just started my first Westlake novel of 2025 and decided to do some research after reading the Introduction to this hardcover edition. 

This is part one of two (which I’ll post after finishing the book). 

So, in the introduction to the 1995 reissue hardcover, Donald E. Westlake writes about this caper tale that was so different from what he written before, that when it was originally released in 1982, it was not a bestseller for him. 

The genesis of the novel is based on true story (though there is no evidence that can confirm this actually did happen in reality) about “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.” As Westlake writes, he was known for both serious (the Parker tales under his pseudonym of Richard Stark) and comic (the Dortmunder series) capers. The more outrageous the theft, the more interesting the idea was to him. He writes “Once, for instance, before the government started paying by check, Parker stole the entire payroll from a United States Air Force Base (The Green Eagle Score). Dortmunder, not to be outdone, has made off with a complete bank, temporarily housed in a mobile home (Bank Shot). And what could be more outrageous than to steal a mile-long train from the dread Idi Amin, and make it disappear?” 

But then he began his research and it sent him down a dark hole (“Research is my own personal Sargasso Sea”) and discovered that there was much more to tell than stealing a train that he would need to incorporate into the tale. One was the fact that under Amin’s years in power, his primary goal was to rid Uganda of Christians. But in a country made up at the time of some sixteen million people, where seventy-five percent identified as Christians, it meant including parts about how roughly five hundred thousand men, women, and children were slaughtered not because they were political, or rebellious, or dangerous, but because they were Christians. 

So Kahawa (the Swahili word for coffee) had to be an exciting caper tale, but also needed to include the horrors of Amin’s dictatorship (which is why, in some sense, the book’s title is so different as well. Westlake’s original was Coffee to Go, but that eventually “slunk off in embarrassment”).

He sold the book to Viking, but the publishing house “was in the midst of an upheaval” and his original editor was let go and the replacement one, what he called an “oil painting of an editor”, couldn’t figure out how to help market the book and felt no one would really want to read a caper novel with such dark and terrible parts to it (this event in his publishing life was the genesis of his 1984 comic novel that took on the publishing industry, A Likely Story). 

When Westalke moved to Warner Books, who through their Mysterious Press imprint, began reissuing a lot of older Westlake titles, as well as new ones, Kahawa was given a second chance at life. In the thirty years since that re-release, it’s probably still one Westlake’s less popular titles. But even as prolific as the man was, he could, on occasion, throw a left curve and surprise readers, both long-time ones and new. 

TO BE CONTINUED…

Books: All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby (2023)

“Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, Charon has had only two murders. After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. Those festering secrets are now out in the open and ready to tear the town apart. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.” 

I generally liked the book; the pacing was fine, the body count high and the gore kept to a minimum. It starts with a school shooting, but instead of a massacre, we end up with a dead teacher (everyone’s favorite, all loved by both the white and black students). The killer is a troubled teen who is killed by police after spouting off some religious phrases. When Titus and his team begin their investigation, they realize Mr. Spearman had many secrets, one being a serial killer. Eventually, they find the bodies of teen boys and girls and going through both Spearman’s phone and computer, see the shocking videos and images of three people mutilating and killing these kids. With two of them dead –Spearman and Latrell- Titus must piece together the clues to find the third man before he can kill again. 

All the Sinners Bleed is a dark, gritty, thriller. But like the other book I read by Cosby, Razorblade Tears, I did not adore the book. It’s got some unsettling scenes, and despite some minor issues with skirmishes with the white people of Charon, it does not dwell on them deeply. However, I felt the women were a collection of stereotypes, and the only way we get to know them is through their relationship with Titus. Plus, his deputy sheriff Carla’s race is never really explored. I did not know if she was white, black, or Latino (and the only hint we get is someone calls her “J.Lo” and even that is not followed up on). 

I also had issue with the killers reveal. He only shows up in the last few pages of the book (and nowhere else) and for a mystery novel that is also a classic whodunit, this seems like terrible idea. Agatha Christie pulled this trick a few times and it’s a trope that should never be used again (also, it’s never revealed why Spearman and Latrell got involved with the killer to begin with, which is odd). 

There a bunch of subplots that are mentioned and go nowhere, or dropped completely. And despite being haunted by actions as an FBI agent, when Cosby finally reveals what happened to Titus in Indiana, I felt that Red DeCrain got what he deserved.

While Cosby’s writing is still evolving, he clearly is borrowing his prose style from other popular writers, noticeably Stephen King and Walter Mosley. It may be considered pretentious, but you have to stick out some way, I guess.

Books: Standing By the Wall (Slough House 8.5) by Mick Herron (2022)

“Roddy Ho is used to being the one the slow horses turn to when they need miracles performed, and he’s always been Jackson Lamb’s Number Two.  So when Lamb has a photograph that needs doctoring, it’s Ho he entrusts with the task.  Christmas is a time for memories, but Lamb doesn’t do memories – or so he says.  But what is it about the photo that makes him want to alter it?  How would the slow horses cope if Roddy Ho did not exist?  And most importantly of all, are the team having Christmas drinks, and if so, where? 

Standing by the Wall is (currently) the last novella that Slough House creator Mick Herron has written. Here we see Roddy Ho, the teams punching bag (99.0% deserved) of weirdness and (in Ho’s mind), Jackson Lamb’s Number Two, the Q to this small clown car of slow horses, the apparent lynchpin for Slough Houses entire “success”, demanded by Lamb to alter a photograph of three people. Basically remove the center figure. Who that person is –that’s not revealed- but the one on the left is a much younger Jackson Lamb and the other Molly Dornan, the Park’s archivist and –perhaps- Lamb’s only friend. 

The other part is a setup for the return of River Cartwright, who was apparently left for dead at the end of book seven. We learn that River was dosed with novichok, a family of nerve agents developed by the Soviet Union and Russia between 1971 and 1993. He’s still has a few weeks left before returning to duty, but because it was Christmas, he felt this was a good chance to see his friends and meet the newest recruit, Ashley. But it’s clear he has some reservations here, mostly because his relationship with Sid has grown. 

There is also, apparently a reference to Operation Monochrome, which appears to be link to his stand-alone spy thriller Secret Hours. 

Otherwise, Lamb is Lamb and it’ll be interesting if this picture will tie into a later novel. But it also serves as another glimpse into Lamb’s murky past. 

Which bring me to the short story Last Dead Letter (which is set just after David Cartwright’s funeral in the novel Joe Country). Here is another glimpse into Lamb’s past. 

”Molly Dornan is there waiting to extract her pound of flesh from Jackson Lamb for an earlier favor. In this case, it’s learning the truth to a story Dornan has found in her precious archives. She’s put most of the pieces together but needs Lamb for the last bits of the puzzle. Molly enjoys closing off those unknown loops in her files wherever possible. The tale she tells is of “Dominic Cross”, an agent runner in Berlin, he’s a little crooked and drinks too much but always looks after his joes. Cross is a veteran of the spy game, but been in Berlin too long. He makes the misjudgment that many spies seem to make – he falls in love. When the Stasi opposition finds a way to turn this against him the question becomes whether he can find a way out of the devil’s choice he’s been given. Does he choose the life of his lover or his joe?” 

For a short story, the Last Dead Letter gives us a lot of information to parse through. Here Herron creates a pretty good atmosphere of Cold War Berlin and as you read, you get a sense that this Cross is really Lamb (but while the whole series is just a variation on themes presented before, I had hoped that this was one trope Herron would avoid – the British spy who falls for the German spy). And I can guess this was Herron’s attempt at giving his long-time readers, who are eager to learn of more of Lamb’s life before Slough House, a reason to read the tale. But there is a twist, as always, and we learn really nothing more beyond the fact that even some forty years earlier, Cross called his watcher The Shit.  

Like all the novellas and this short story, they are not necessary reads. But for those completists out there, these tales are like bits of candy in small packages, but sometimes, usually at the end, they turn tart.

Books: Bad Actors (Slough House #8) by Mick Herron (2022)

“A governmental think-tank, whose remit is to curb the independence of the intelligence service, has lost one of its key members, and Claude Whelan—one-time head of MI5's Regent’s Park—is tasked with tracking her down. But the trail leads straight back to the Park itself, with Diana Taverner as chief suspect. Has Diana overplayed her hand at last? What’s her counterpart, Moscow’s First Desk, doing in London? And does Jackson Lamb know more than he’s telling? Over at Slough House, with Shirley Dander in rehab, Roddy Ho in dress rehearsal, and new recruit Ashley Khan turning up the heat, the slow horses are doing what they do best, and adding a little bit of chaos to an already unstable situation. There are bad actors everywhere, and they usually get their comeuppance before the credits roll. But politics is a dirty business, and in a world where lying, cheating and backstabbing are the norm, sometimes the good guys can find themselves outgunned.” 

For the eighth book in the Slough House/Slow Horses series, Herron mixes up the narrative structure of Bad Actors, and begins the story with a long flashback that starts two thirds into the tale. It begins with Oliver Nash meeting up with previous First Desk, Claude Wheelan. Nash wants a favor and Wheelan should have enough sense to steer clear, but convinces himself to look into the whereabouts of a missing associate of Anthony Sparrow (The PM {a jab at Boris Johnson} is seen as a useless figurehead, and it appears the government is really being run by this manipulative aide and all around sleazebag {another jab at Dominic Cummings}). Dr. Sophia de Greer is a superforecaster upon whom Sparrow relies. But she's been AWOL for several days. Sparrow points fingers at Diana Taverner, the First Desk of the Secret Service. Because it becomes clear Sparrow's real objective is to collect all branches of government under his direct control by any means. Something Lady Di does not want. 

Bad Actors is another complex tale of spies vs. spies, political absurdities, lies, and mischievous antics in governmental circles. As usual, though, there is also plenty of dark humor, some misdirection, mistaken identity, and manipulation. Jackson Lamb also calls in semi-retired John Bachelor (from the numerous novellas) to play a more central role than usual. And Herron also has great fun teasing us readers, making us wait until the very end to conclude a particular storyline from the last book. 

I’ve now caught up with the novels, and beside one novella yet to go, I’ll be waiting until next month for Clown Town, the ninth novel in this series. It means, as well, I’ll be buying my first hardcover, because I doubt I can wait until next summer to read it in paperback. And somewhere along the way, I’ll want to see the Apple+ TV show of these books. 

Books: Slough House (Slow Horses/Slough House #7) By Mick Herron (2021)

“A year after a calamitous blunder by the Russian secret service left a British citizen dead from novichok poisoning, Diana Taverner is on the warpath. What seems a gutless response from the government has pushed the Service's First Desk into mounting her own counter-offensive—but she's had to make a deal with the devil first. And given that the devil in question is arch-manipulator Peter Judd, she could be about to lose control of everything she's fought for. Meanwhile, still reeling from recent losses, the slow horses are worried they've been pushed further into the cold. Slough House has been wiped from Service records, and fatal accidents keep happening. No wonder Jackson Lamb's crew are feeling paranoid. But have they actually been targeted? With a new populist movement taking a grip on London's streets, and the old order ensuring that everything's for sale to the highest bidder, the world's an uncomfortable place for those deemed surplus to requirements. The wise move would be to find a safe place and wait for the troubles to pass. But the slow horses aren't famed for making wise decisions. And with enemies on all sides, not even Jackson Lamb can keep his crew from harm.” 

Set only months after the events Joe Country, our slow horses find themselves erased from the Park’s intelligence record database, being followed regularly, while River discovers one the earliest slow horses still alive and hiding in his late grandfather’s house. Meanwhile, Peter Judd (turning very much into a Bond villain) continues to move the pawns on his game board that could put him 10 Down Street. Meanwhile, First Desk arch-manipulator Diana "Lady Di" Taverner finds herself in a bind and makes a strategic mistake that could cost her much more than she’s willing to pay. Then there is Jackson Lamb, who continues to know more than everyone else, trying to figure out why past and present slow horses are being targeted by, what turns out to be, Russian assassins. 

Slough House is another fast-paced tale playing out against the backdrop of British politics, much of it I don’t grasp, but I guess it sort of seemly plays out like our current political world in the US. The writing remains sharp, with witty and clever dialogue, and Lamb remains at his politically incorrect best. One thing I like, as I read this series,  is how the team sort of hates each (well, all of them really hate Roddy Ho, who Herron makes more funny and weirdly icky at the same time) but there is an undeniable feeling of loyalty to each other as well. 

Also while all the characters have continuing arcs, each book has sort of been self contained "episodes". But for the first time, Herron leaves us with a huge cliffhanger. While I have Bad Actors sitting on the shelf, along with another novella, I was going to read something else. Mostly because I reached a point where I’ve caught up with the series and that means waiting a year for book nine to released in paperback, or buy the hardcover when it’s released in September. I'm conflicted, but I think I need to start on that next.