Stars and Stripes in Peril (Stars & Stripes Trilogy)
Harry Harrison has been publishing science fiction for half a century;  this novel appears in 2000, the year of his 75th birthday. His 1998Stars and Stripes Foreverwas a  foray into alternative history at the time of the U.S. Civil War. An  opportunistic British invasion is so badly bungled that it unites warring Union  and Confederate forces against the common enemy, and the course of events is  rousingly changed.Now it's 1863 and perfidious Albion is making a comeback via the Pacific,  establishing a Mexican beachhead and planning attacks on united America's "soft  underbelly" in the Gulf of Mexico. Gurkha and Sepoy troops build roads while  sweaty white officers express nostalgia for England: "I despair of ever seeing  her blissfully cold and fog-shrouded shores again."An early coup of misdirection makes the British advance seem unstoppable--but  America forges ahead with new guns and naval armor, and General Robert E. Lee  devises an audacious counterblow. What better way to disrupt Britain's wicked  schemes than to strike at her own rebellious province of Ireland?Harrison, an American, perhaps overdoes the lofty dignity of figures like  Abraham Lincoln, while showing British politicians with their full complement of  warts. But the breathless, headlong action sweeps you away as the battle is  planned and at last joined. Even hardened English patriots will feel a sense of  wish-fulfillment at the possibility that America may solve the "Irish Question"  for them. This is a rapid-paced, slightly slapdash, and unfailingly energetic  adventure in alternate history--all great fun.--David Langford,  Amazon.co.uk