OR ELSE MY LADY KEEPS THE KEY

Baker, Kage.

ISBN 10: 1596061626 / ISBN 13: 9781596061620

Published by Subterranean Press., Burton, MI:, 2008

About this Item

HC in dust jacket. 1st Printing. One of 1500 copies signed by Baker. A fine copy in a fine dust jacket. Seller Inventory # 20300

Bibliographic Details

Title: OR ELSE MY LADY KEEPS THE KEY

Publisher: Subterranean Press., Burton, MI:

Publication Date: 2008

Binding: Hardcover

Edition: 1st edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

It's 1672 in Port Royal, Jamaica. John James, London bricklayer's apprentice turned pirate, is returning from the sack of Panama with his share of the loot (a lousy 200 pieces of eight) and a resolve to go back to bricklaying, since piracy pays so badly. First, though, he has a duty: he must deliver a letter to a lady. The letter is from his dead comrade, Sir Thomas Blackstone, who was a court intriguer on a mission for Prince Rupert of the Rhine. The letter's recipient is Clarissa Waverly, Blackstone's mistress and accomplice. Before he went off to Panama, Blackstone hid four thousand pounds of the prince's money, unwilling to trust his lady friend not to make off with it in his absence. Dying of battle wounds, he wrote to let her know where he'd concealed the money.

From Publishers Weekly:

This amusing but insubstantial short novel explores history and the limits of free will in a more straightforward fashion than Baker's Company series (In the Garden of Iden, etc.). Sturdy, good-natured John James, a 17th-century Caribbean buccaneer, wants to leave the piratical life and settle down as a bricklayer, but first he must deliver a letter to Clarissa Waverly, the mistress of one of his late shipmates. This seemingly routine errand sets John and Clarissa off on a journey to recover the dead man's cache of stolen gold. They're soon joined by Sejanus, an ex-slave who insists he's an atheist but can't elude the demands of African deities. Sejanus makes a nice counterpoint to John's lower-key angst, and his story would probably be more interesting than John and Clarissa's predictably tumultuous quest for wealth. Without imminent sequels or continuations, this short adventure is little more than a shaggy sea dog story. (Apr.)
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