AN ICE-CREAM WAR (1983) is the fourth William Boyd book I've read, but it was one of his first novels. He's written a couple dozen books by now, since he began publishing nearly forty years ago. You'd never know that this was one of his first books, because it's just so damn good, so absorbing and well-crafted that it's hard to put down. Set in East Africa (and England) just before, during and after the First World War, it braids together the story of four different characters - the two Cobb brothers, Gabriel and Felix; an American entrepreneur-farmer, Temple Smith, and Gabriel's bride, Charis. I doubt if too many people know much about the Great War as it was waged in Africa, but Boyd has obviously done his homework about German, British and Portuguese East Africa in that era. And Boyd himself was born and grew up in Africa. His Scottish father was a physician in various places there. So he makes the climate, the smells, the sounds, the heat, the flies - the atmosphere - as real as you'll find it anywhere in fiction. Having gone to school in Scotland, Boyd also has some fun with the broad Scottish accents and idiosyncrasies of its particular brand of 'English.' Here's a sample, from Felix's Scottish NCO, Sergeant Gilzean, who's worried about a dark urine he's been passing -

"I've been passin' this drumlie loppert water for a week. I just get a mitchkin, ya ken. A jaup ... I'm fair dotted with worry. This grugous stuff ... it's oorie. It could be a clyre in my culls ... Or my monopolies. My jug. Yes my jug even."

Felix, a Lieutenant with a Nigerian unit, mostly has no idea what his sergeant is saying about half the time, which makes for some rather hilarious exchanges.

Equally hilarious is a disastrous encounter with an English prostitute in which Felix 'sort of' loses his virginity - a classic case of premature ejaculation, which angers the whore, who exclaims -

"Ach, you dirty little bugger .. All over the bloody blankets. Go on ... You dirty little squirter ... Clear off out of it!"

Boyd even manages to make some cringingly hilarious humor from scenes of battle. Gabriel and his men, while advancing on the German lines are suddenly attacked by swarms of angry bees causing them all to retreat in wild disarray, swatting and shouting.

Perhaps one of the most striking of Boyd's talents is his ability to have you chuckling and laughing one minute and gasping in horror the next, as he juxtaposes the comic and the tragic elements of this ridiculous little 'ice-cream war,' sometimes even on the same page. You will find all manner of the savagery of war and its cruel results and side effects here - suicide, adultery, disease (the Spanish influenza epidemic), murders, even a beheading. The English characters often bring to mind the antics of the Monty Python troupe of comic actors. I also thought often of Evelyn Waugh's comic novels of WWII, MEN AT ARMS and OFFICERS AND GENTLEMEN, which I read many years ago.

Boyd is a deft master at what he does, combining the comic and the tragic. It's a rare talent, and man, is he GOOD at it. The other Boyd books I've read over the years were A GOOD MAN IN AFRICA, BRAZZAVILLE BEACH, and THE BLUE AFTERNOON. I'm so glad there are still so many more, because, after this one, I definitely want to read more of his work. My highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )

This historical novel set in Tanzania, Kenya and the UK during WW I, is darkly humorous and beautifully detailed. The focus is on a group of people whose own lives and plans are spun into disarray by the war and its consequences. Von Bishop enjoys farming in German East Africa, but his wife, Liesl, longs to return to Germany. Across the border, the American, Walter, cares about little in life by his farm, his sisal decorticator, and his future agricultural plans. In England, the Cobb family drifts in the moral and intellectual haze of the 1920s, absorbed in family squabbles. International forces, however, drag each family out of their normal path and into a confusion of life, death and love. The writing is beautifully descriptive, portraying the individuals as unregarded pawns who are incapable of making sense of larger historical forces sweeping over them. Boyd's book is largely character driven. There are, honestly speaking, no African characters in the book at all. While one can certainly argue that using a large and obviously relevant group of people merely as a backdrop may seem strange, I appreciate that Boyd focuses on the characters whose story he is telling. This, in my opinion, is preferable to tacking on a modern view of the world through some "sensitive" character who will "understand" the "natives" as is so often done in contemporary historical novels. ( )

Set in WW1 in East Africa and England, Boyd weaves an engrossing tale involving the Germans and British in East Africa and centring on the lives of 2 brothers in the British army and the tangled webs of their lives. ( )

Africa during WW1, a farmer, some other minor characters - it all could have made for a very boring book. In Boyd's hands, however, the characters shine and we get a fascinating glimpse into another time. The marriage in the book is one that profoundly depresses me because it rings true for so many of the marriages I am acquainted with... ( )

An Ice Cream War is the story of American, German, and British lives in the little-known East African theater of World War I. As indicated by the book title, the British expected the campaign to be a joke. The action takes place mostly in the European colonies of East Africa and England between 1914 and 1919. Some of the characters expect war, and some doubt it will occur, but none of the characters have any idea how devastating the war will be to everyone, even those far from the battlefield.

The book draws four separate narrative strands together in an engaging novel of war, love and revenge. Walter Smith owns a farm in British East Africa. Just across the border, in German East Africa, are his neighbors, Erich von Bishop and his wife Liesl. Back in England Felix Cobb returns home from boarding school for the wedding of his older brother, Gabriel. Gabriel is a professional soldier, a captain in the British Army, but Felix is more of an intellectual currently dabbling with pacifism. For all their flaws, the important characters share a sense of humanity and fatalism in the face of hardship. Through the course of the novel some issues are resolved, but few if any are resolved in ways that the characters want or expect. Despite the beliefs they held concerning armed conflict between nations before the outbreak of war, their beliefs change, and they come to realize that no one anywhere is immune to the effects of war. ( )