SOURCE: "How the Tough Get Going," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4366, December 5, 1986, p. 1368.

Below, Davis provides a negative assessment of Whirlwind, claiming that the "version of Iranian society offered is tripe."

Whirlwind, which its author calls an "adventure story", is set in Iran shortly after the Islamic revolution: the plot concerns a rich international company's attempt to evacuate its pilots and helicopters to a friendly Arab Emirate on the other side of the Gulf. The first scene shows us a helicopter flying low over a praying mullah who furiously and incompetently shoots at the departing foreign intruder: this scene more or less encapsulates what the novel has to say and is repeated with variations ad nauseam for the next thousand or so pages. It is very difficult to see why the novel is so long—there is certainly no need for it—and it is almost as...