2018 School Spending Survey Report
The Last Bookaneer
Penguin Pr. May 2015. 400p. ISBN 9781594204920. $27.95; ebk. ISBN 9780698195615. F
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"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest. Yo-ho-ho and a trunk full of manuscripts!" At the tail end of the 19th century copyright law has yet to be established and publishers are making a killing by printing unauthorized editions. In this world of literary piracy the men and women employed to do the dirty work of procuring the unpublished texts are called bookaneers. When a young bookseller named Fergins is swept off to the South Pacific island of Samoa by his mentor Pen Davenport, he becomes involved in one of the last great adventures of bookaneering, involving dodging missionaries, cannibals, German settlers, and a dastardly competitor for a treasure of unknown value—the latest and, possibly, last novel of Robert Louis Stevenson.
VERDICT This swashbuckling tale of greed and great literature will remind you why Pearl (The Dante Club; The Poe Shadow) is the reigning king of popular literary historical thrillers. His latest is guaranteed to delight lovers of history and mystery and will likely find an enthusiastic crossover audience among those who enjoy the works of Carlos Ruiz Zafón (The Watcher in the Shadows), Erik Larson (In the Garden of Beasts), and Katherine Howe (The House of Velvet and Glass). [See Prepub Alert, 11/10/14.]
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