The Shenandoah Spy - Part 10
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend Daniel Keily has fallen in love with Belle, who continues to use him as a source of intelligence. On instructions from Ashby, she needs to get to Winchester to see Alexander Boetler, the Secret Service chief for Northern Virginia. Ultimately she persuades Hasbrouke Reeve to help her, despite lacking a pass. He does so, and she takes Alice along because Clark, the reporter, has been very aggressive towards them both. They suspect… Product details and pricing info |
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- It's Civil War coverage like you've never read before...
- Folded notes safely nestled between heaving bosom?
Soft wet kisses planted deftly upon unsuspecting and slightly overused and ruddy Yankee cheeks?
Daring escapes from enemy territory paid for with raunchy IOUs?
Yep, this is Part Ten of the Shenandoah Spy, folks, and author Francis Hamit picks up right where he left our bold heroine Belle Boyd off last time.
Mr. Hamit's extract to the story above does a mighty fine job in adequately summarizing what this tenth installment is all about. Ergot, I'm going to avoid playing spoiler for you to leave you to pick up your own copy. G'head, press "Buy for forty-nine cents."
Do it!
You won't regret it.
Lookit, there's more than a palpable empathy for our beloved Belle Boyd at this stage in the game, folks. Me? I get all bubbly inside when my eyes grace over Belle's whippersnapper and button-smart ways of handling the various, er...troubles that occasionally lay themselves down in her (and her colleagues') path.
As our story progresses--now more than three-quarters of the way through, it seems--we've grown along with our mighty dingaling, Belle (bell, get it?). We've observed her blossoming into that crafty vixen-like--meow!--kitten, being which seems to assist her in her undertakings for the Rebs (rebels). She makes most efficacious use of her, um..."natural talents." Boom, boom, bazoom.
I realize by the time I reach Part 14, I'm going to want to jump right on into the screen with her and tell her how proud I am of her seditious deliciousness. I'd ask the Fishback to bring us up a bowl of strawberries and cream, to boot, but then again, that Big Seattle-based Software Company hasn't yet invented the technology to replicate such instant delights as yet. As soon as it does, I've got a whole wish list of things I'd like to have pop out of this screen...and they perhaps look a little something like Belle, as Hamit outlines her. Yum!
In any event, I've come to realize that Sir Francesco knows how to make a fait accompli yarn seem magically engaging (magically delicious?). We all know what happened in the late 19th century in the US of A, but the Hamit-ster recreates the scene for us as if all of this only happened, well...yesterday.
It takes a fair amount of skill to do that, mesdames et messieurs, and this particular striving author of ours succeeds totally in conjuring up a fair number of subplots and crafty diversions in order to enhance the portrayals of his characters. It does a good number of pulling our focuses off of such inevitabilities, and smack onto the relationships in this tale--can you say empathy, Mr. Rogers?
Basically, it's like this: we're no longer focussing on the inexorable loss, yet rather on the complexities of what make Belle tick-tock-tick.
I have one small observation, Mr. Holmes, which I'm certain our author is quite aware of: It's slightly jarring--akin to a short ride on Prague's street tramcars, with perhaps the closest cognate in the US somewhere in San Francisco--but jarring, as I say, to follow the stepwise progression of Belle's diary.
I mean, it's grandslam fantastic that F to the H has this particular source material on which to draw, though the only complaint I generally have in the read (as only a Tenth Anniversary reader would know best, moi), is that in cleaving so zealously/religiously/evangelically/masterfully (all apply, and I couldn't decide which word to use, so you get them all) to the source text, the plot seems somewhat, um...jagged.
There were at least two instances of narrative transition in this here Part 10 where I thought a jump was effected too quickly. I'd have liked to see a little build-up. Like a good piece of early '90s progressive house music.
All in all, we're well on our way into the resolution of this story, but I'm lovin' how the Confederates (at this stage in our "story") are giving the battle one last college try. They're going to give it a go to oust the Northerners. Let's see how it goes, shall we?
Disbelief is suspended. I mean that in the most dramatically complimentary of terms.
-- ADM in Prague - 2006-09-29, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
