I have been working through the Taylor Jackson books and on the whole I've been quite enjoying them. They are not without flaws but engaging enough to hold my attention. This one... not so much. It very nearly ended up a DNF a couple of times. If you like your minorities stereotyped to the point of caricature then this is the book for you. Black people who neglect their dirty children and say 'dat', Englishmen who say 'bit of skirt' and 'your chap'... Memphis Highsmythe (seriously?What, there aren't enough actual surnames for the aristocracy in England? You have to make up one that sounds completely fucking ridiculous?) in particular bugged the ever-loving shit out of me. It's like the author has never actually met an Englishman before and was relying on old reruns of Monty Python and the Carry On films for a deep exploration of the British psyche. Go ahead, pick any line that Memphis says and read it out loud. Then read it out to a Briton. Ellison pushed this guy out of the cliche tree and he hit every branch on the way down.
Ellison's characters are never exactly well-rounded, but the treatment of minorities in this book was truly offensive. I'll give the next book a go but only because I'm hoping the Pretender will off Memphis in a particularly gruesome way.