Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in 1772, Goble's shaky debut and series launch mixes a violent pirate yarn with amateur-detective snooping. To escape law officers hot on their heels, Spider John Rush and his friend Ezra reluctantly join the crew of the outlaw ship Plymouth Dream, which is anchored in a cove south of Boston. They plan to desert as soon as they're safely away from the Massachusetts Bay Colony coast, but Ezra's death aboard the ship disrupts that scheme. Spider John knows that someone on Plymouth Dream must have murdered his friend, and he vows to find the killer and take revenge. At this point, the story could have followed the model of the traditional country house puzzle, focusing on a small pool of suspects. Unfortunately, the pirate vessel is carrying too many eccentric, dangerous folks who could be guilty, from a tattooed religious fanatic to the homicidal captain. Spider John's observations of shipboard life and the scurvy crew are more interesting than the feeble mystery. Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT After a fight in a Boston tavern, Spider John Rush and his friend Ezra escape by joining the crew of a pirate ship heading to Jamaica in 1722. But someone onboard spreads the word among the superstitious shipmates that Ezra's grandmother and mother were hanged as witches in Salem. When Ezra is discovered dead, everyone claims it was a drunken accident. Spider John is the only one who suspects murder, and as the ship's carpenter, he has the opportunity to move around and listen. Spider John has no one to trust, but he's determined to stay alive long enough to find justice for his dead friend. VERDICT This original, gritty, action-packed debut is rich in historical detail. Suggest for readers who enjoy the Pirates of the Caribbean movies or Patrick O'Brian's -seafaring adventures.-LH © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Avast, Watson! Journalist Goble's fiction debut sets its murder mystery aboard an 18th-century pirate ship.Narrowly escaping first the shipwreck of the Lamia and then the wrath of one of the wreck's few other survivors, carpenter Spider John Rush and his blood brother, Ezra Coombs, accept an offer they'd spurned only hours earlier, seeking to elude further dangers in Massachusetts Bay by joining the crew of the Plymouth Dream. They duly sign the ship's articles, accept the work Capt. William Barlow assigns them, and bed down in the expectation of more adventures. But Ezra's adventures are ended the next night, along with Spider John's hopes of peace, by the man who clubs Ezra to death and leaves a pewter tankard close by to suggest he got drunk and fell. Spider John, who knows that Ezra didn't drink and that an accidental fall wouldn't have left two distinct head wounds, vows to avenge him, well aware that he faces some unique challenges. Of the 70 crewmen aboard the Plymouth Dream, all are lawbreakers, most are killers, and every single one's a reasonable suspect. In addition, Ezra's unfortunate reputation as a witch's son, which followed him to his new berth and perhaps caused his death, guarantees to make anyone investigating that death deeply unpopular. Even so, Spider John, determined to get to the truth of the killing, begins to make cautious inquiries among the pirate crewinquiries that will be interrupted by the Plymouth Dream's battle with another ship, a forced search for a mysterious brass cylinder, a mutiny, and the intermittent pursuit of the ship by one of His Majesty's frigates. The mix of pirates and detection works surprisingly well. If the guilty party is no great surprise, both the mystery and the sleuthing are neatly turned. First of a series. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
