We Review Magnificent Malevolence

Derek Wilson steals C S Lewis literary clothes and puts them on to run amok through the social, politcal and spritual turmoil of the last half of the twentieth century.

With his own devilish creation, Crumblewit, Wilson shows how the principles of temptation proposed by Lewis’ famous demon, Screwtape, achieved everything he could have hoped for in the years from 1948 to the present… and how he will still, ultimately, fail. This isn’t necessarily a book for the Lewis buff; you don't need to know a thing about Lewis’ hellish antihero. And although it’s written by a historian, you don’t need to know your late twentieth century history either.

The undercover devil uses techniques that John le Carré’s George Smiley would recognise to bring about everything from the Midle East conflict to the current financial collapse, although I wish it had more of a Carré style plot about it. With a lot to say about the self destructive obsessions and distractions of the Church (too fixated on the past and future to notice what’s going on today) it’s not all doom and gloom; Crumbelewit’s very pomposity and deviousness prove to be his own undoing.