An Ice Cream War
by William Boyd
1982 / 397 pages
rating: 7  / historical fiction

Set in the summer of  1914 in German East Africa,  now Burundi, Rwanda and parts of Tanzania,  a couple ex-patriot neighbors, one US one German,  live in relative peace, tolerating each other as they strive to make a living in the area.  Then WWI breaks out and the English come.

This is the rather darkly humorous story of  how the war affected ex-patriots from various countries in and around Kilimanjaro.

Walter Smith is an enterprising young man from the US who with his wife Matilda, the daughter of a minister,  owns a small sisal plantation and a precious Decorticator.

Erich Von Bishop and his wife Leisl.  Leisl has just returned from a visit to her family in the US and she hates Africa and was very ill.  She works as a nurse.   >>>>MORE>>>>