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nigellicus's review
5.0
Young Francis Place, living in a cottage with his mother supported as poor relations to a Gloucester Lord, one night stumbles upon a vicious hanging. He rescues the intended victim and soon finds himself caught in a tngled take of justice and revenge that goes back to the harsh supression of Catholic insurrection in Ireland. Despite the man's roguish nature, Francis finds himself in fascinated sympathy with Scarf Jack, and takes against the would-be murderers, who happen to be guests at his Lord's manor, and decides to help him in his scheme to take revenge.
Apparently an unusual British book inasmuch as it attempted to take a sympathetic view of the Irish Catholics, though Lynch is careful to distinguish between the atrocity-loving irregular miulitia and the regular army who would generally prefer to avid that sort of thing, a divide he undercuts through Jak's own ruminations on the costs of a soldiering life. Still, it's a grand, thrlling, adventure, extremely well-written, and Francis wrestling with the thrill of it all versus the rather grim and terrifiying conseuqences, makes for a thoughtful and sensitive hero.
Apparently an unusual British book inasmuch as it attempted to take a sympathetic view of the Irish Catholics, though Lynch is careful to distinguish between the atrocity-loving irregular miulitia and the regular army who would generally prefer to avid that sort of thing, a divide he undercuts through Jak's own ruminations on the costs of a soldiering life. Still, it's a grand, thrlling, adventure, extremely well-written, and Francis wrestling with the thrill of it all versus the rather grim and terrifiying conseuqences, makes for a thoughtful and sensitive hero.
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