A novel in verse, View from Mount Diablo explores the transformation of Jamaica from a sleepy colonial society to a post-colonial nation where political corruption, armed gangs, drug wars, and an avenging police and army have made life hell. Class and racial privilege and the resentments they provoke underscore both the turmoil in the wider society and the relationships at the heart of the narrative between Adam Cole, the dreamy white Jamaican boy who becomes a crusading journalist exposing the hidden godfathers of crime, squint-eyed Nellie Simpson, once the servant who cares for/abuses him, who becomes a political enforcer, and stuttering Nathan the gardner and groom, whose boyhood love for Adam is tested to the full when Adam's journalism threatens to expose his role as a cocaine baron. Beyond this trio is a dazzling array of real and fictive characters including Bustamente, Tony Blake aka 'The Frog', Blaka, and informer who finds religion, a white plantation owner still trying to wield power, and a suicidal police officer.