Crimes in Hot Countries, written in 1985, in a gritty, brutal, bawdy critique of British imperialism set in a fictional African desert military outpost. The colony is loosely run by Erica Tallboy, daughter of the governor who spends his days pretending he's had a stroke. The soldiers' loyalties are divided between the tough, sardonic Eddie Music and the masochistic superpatriot, Pain, who is actually Lawrence of Arabia in disguise.

Their uneasy, arid world is thrown into turmoil when the arrival of three enterprising prostitutes, an unscrupulous profiteer of a merchant, and a free-lance revolutionary named Toplis, loosely based on Percy Toplis, a man who may have actually tormented a major British military mutiny during World War I. As Toplis's ideas take hold, the colony is turned upside-down.

Music and Terellis, one of the hookers, become rival leaders. Pain calls his buddy Winston Chruchill to send more loyal troops. Toplis and Erica play out variations on sexuality and political power on their own, letting the revolution go its way without them.