The Shenandoah Spy - Part 8
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend Belle and Alice use their charm and the hotel register to assemble a complete order of battle of the Union Army staff. David Strother comes with General Banks to the hotel for a meeting. Belle's servant, Eliza eavesdrops on what is said, but Strother is distracted and depressed by meeting Alice and Belle. The meeting is awkward and emotionally wrenching. Belle has been accused by Clark, a reporter, of being an active spy, but the… Product details and pricing info |
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1 Customer Review Posted
- Nice to be back in Belle's mind after a rather long hiatus...
- ...golly gee, it's been quite a while (hasn't it?) since I've heard from Belle Boyd's (and as you'll read in this latest installment, her large bazoom-ed) camp -- almost two months, in fact, as the two months fly, since my last review of any of Francis Hamit's material -- not good.
First, a tip of my poor boy's cap to Mr. Hamit "hisself" (Eliza lingo) for being one of the best partners in Amazon Shorts "crime" that a reviewer could ever ask for -- you'd kind of think that the Iron Curtain was alive and well, shooting down dissidents and potential escapees from the concrete towers peering out over the Berlin Wall with the kind of Shorts bolshevism that's been plaguing we enjoyers of the short fiction from these here former Czechoslovakian and other EU and non-US parts. I'm sort of miffed with the whole bureaucracy of what's going on of late at the ole 'zon -- has something to do with reciprocal tax and/or value-added tax (VAT) issues which is making these reviews for yours truly harder and harder to come by and post.
Thanks to the good-naturedness of a few still-wise rebels like myself and Mr. Hamit (but I shall readily disavow him of this moniker should he feel it not becoming to his good name), the Amazon Poobahs, with their fanciful notions of so-called tax fascism won't be permitted to exact their burdensome levies on us any longer. We have now circumvented it, as it were, the embargo on EU downloads and snagging of said Amazon Shorts. As well, I'd like to add that certain Amazon Underlings and Serfs were also very helpful in assisting me to ram the naval blockade and relevant firewalling and IP-sleuthing, which ensured that the 'zon's Shorts web servers just knew (didn't they?) that here I was in the Golden City of Prague attempting to snag more Shorts which I'd willinging wanted to pony up the half-a-buck for but couldn't because Amazon was too busy working out its quasi-fascist policies with respect to the tax issue at the direct expense of artist's privilege and overall creativity (wasn't that the best run-on sentence you've ever come across?). Thank you Francis, John, and my other stellar colleagues south of the border and across the Pond for coming to my literary aid. I needed it. Ohhhmmmm....
Okay, onto my review...
I had a usual list of questions for the author following my read:
** I didn't necessarily grasp the concept of the swapping of the monies, as in, the exchange of Yankee dollar notes for Confederate dollars (do you have any samples, incidentally?), and why Yankee dollars were being accepted and exchanged for Confederate dollars in "occupied" Confederate territory, in Front Royal, VA. Here's what I want to know -- if the usage of Confederate dollars are banned in said Front Royal, then why is the owner of the Fishback Hotel exchanging perfectly good and legal tender for banned notes, best used as bookmarks or museum pieces or tissue paper to blow one's nose with during the pollen-infested Southern summers?
** the notion of "sign the pledge." I'm going to take a wild hack and slash at the meaning (without the Freddy Kruger mask, m'kay?)...without googling...does this mean to sign a pledge of "chastity?" I was attempting to work it out from context, so please forgive the silliness and the potential oversight.
** I noticed a bit of "period chauvinism" when you described the passage of Keily's going down on Belle. You'd gotten all graphic when it came to Belle's working of Keily's shaft, but a little scant on the details when it came to Belle's sweet enchilada...why's that, sir?
I didn't have any other queries this time out, though I'm certain when I read Part 9 I'm going to have a whole whack of retroactive doozies with which to dazzle you, that will have scads more to do with some of the things I'd read about in "parte ocho."
You've got to love the bold and seductive imagery of Belle getting it on with Keily -- hell ya! I really enjoyed this section, and I'm particularly impressed with Francis for, er...inserting them at the end of the read, when things sometimes will begin to flag after a longer passge. I'm happy for that momentary rush of blood to all parts of my nethers, which, I suppose, is the final arbiter of what makes one's writing so goshdarned good.
I don't think we'd quite read about Belle in that manner in any of the previous sections, and all of a sudden I've got a bold new respect for her and the types of things she can do. I'm none too ashamed to admit this, kay?
Now that we've, in the words of Ed Keily, "crossed a line here," I'm looking forward to seeing what other exploits the now non-virginal shaft-loving spy-ess, Belle Boyd, gets up to.
You know the ending, but you really "don't." It's a delectable suspension of disbelief that we willingly engage in.
Don't you feel the same way?
-- ADM in Prague - 2006-08-17, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
