Happy Valley: The Story of the English in Kenya

The definitive story of the British in Kenya, from the explorer Joseph Thomson, whose exploits inspired King Solomon’s Mines, to the decadent Happy Valley set of the 1930s, the murder of Lord Erroll, and the Mau Mau revolt of the 1950s.

Book Author

Nicholas Best grew up in Kenya, of Anglo-Irish origin, and was educated there, in England, and at Trinity College, Dublin. He served a spell in Britain’s Grenadier Guards, during which he was airlifted to Belize to prevent its invasion by Guatemalan tanks - an experience that gave him his first short story (in Penthouse) and a satirical novel Where were you at Waterloo? Thereafter he worked in London as a financial journalist before becoming a full time writer. He is the author of Happy Valley: the Story of the English in Kenya, Tennis and the Masai (a comic novel later seri...
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Book Reviews

• Max Hastings, Evening Standard
  "Nicholas Best tells an immensely entertaining tale"
• Nigel Dempster, Punch
  "Erudite, amusing and, even, gossipy"
• Melbourne Herald
  "First class... quite hilariously funny!'"
• Country Life
  "Anyone with experience of Kenya, past or present, resident or tourist, will enjoy reading Happy Valley"