This is not quite a travel book, more of an extended travel brochure combined with a series of interviews with people who, like Davies, don't quite belong in the Caribbean. Hunter Davies is a very British writer, notable for his biography of the Beatles. He sets himself the strange task of writing a guide to the islands, while interviewing ex-patriots (from elsewhere) and emigrants who have come back home. It's not entirely clear why - in part it seems a whimsy. Perhaps there was a story to be told here about attitudes, identity and alienation, but this book isn’t it. The reader is left with the impression that they are dipping into the guest’s comments in the hotel register. Davies personal experiences take a bit of a back seat in the narrative, and are limited to the barest of observations about the quality of the food, the hotel room and the airplane ride. He arrives on the Concorde and it’s pretty much first class all the way from there. There are no perilous journeys here. Meanwhile the great mass of humanity (apart from taxi drivers and hotel staff) go about their lives largely 'out of sight' of this book. To balance the ledger, however, Davies portrait of the super-exclusive island of Mustique and its treatment of the original inhabitants is very revealing, and perhaps makes the book. To get there, however, you have to wade through a great many comments about food and lodging that weren’t (like the book really...) up to expectations. ( )