[PREV - LESLIE_FORD] [TOP]
HIGHLAND_HAWK
November 25, 2007
"Highland Hawk"
by Leslie Turner White.
Your basic adventure novel, here,
"historical" variety, with Cromwell
and Cavendish strutting around And also a Robert Lowry,
on stage as secondary characters. who I can't quite
place, though the name
Readable enough, though sounds familiar...
there are places where And for once, wikipedia
the author is too is no help. Perhaps
obviously trying to open I'm thinking of someone
negotions with Hollywood else, and he's not a
(see, Erroll Flynn contemporary of the
vehicle! Get it? And I see that parlimentary rebellion
look, his side-kick is a White did of the 1640s.
regular Friar Tuck, the story
right up Eugene for Flynn's
Pallette's alley!). "Northern
Pursuit"
The plot manipulations (1943)...
are a little heavy-handed
in places as well, There are precious few web
particularly the business hits on "Leslie Turner White"
about an escape from an in this day and age... many
inconvienient a page pushing used books,
marriage-under-duress by but no fan sites, no wikipedia
the novel's end. writeups...
The real trouble
is that White
just isn't taking
the project all
that seriously
and is happy to The tip-off is the back
let it degenerate jacket photo: shot from
into Camp. below, posing with
nautical cap and pipe,
squinting at the sky.
All page My copy was once
numbers here owned by the
" Yet, mark this, are from the Birmingham Public
_m'lud_ -- ye'd best hardcover Library, and is
muzzle yer tongue an' edition from labeled "cop. 4"
confide naught to a Crown, which which might be
wooman ye wouldn't can not be a gauge of the
pass to the town the first. author's popularity.
crier! " -- P. 104
The dust The card sitting
jacket in the envelope
mentions glued in the back
"... By the way, sir, "Lord would not seem
what *is* his exact Johnnie" to be the first:
position in your service?" which was
"Marster o' Conscience!" published It shows only
snorted Half-Hanged, "I later in three check-outs:
keep the troublesome beast 1959. Nov 6 '57
bridled an' out o' 'arm's Apr 17 '68
w'y!" -- p. 105 It claims that Nov 6 '68
"Lord Johnnie"
sold in the
"multi-millions".
" Have I not explained that His one big hit?
I am a student of human nature?"
" The worst side of human DOWN_WITH_ARISTOCRACY
nature, it would seem!"
"Bah! There is only one side!
Man is like a magician; he
talks about one thing while his
hands do something else."
-- p. 135
The dialog in dialect
grates in places, though And to my ear the Scottish
perhaps surprisingly few. dialect in play in MacLeod's
"Newton's Wake" is even less
intrusive. Maybe this is
something that sometimes
works, and sometimes cause
problems?
At a guess, it's just a matter
of quantity. If you've got
too many sentences where the
apostrophe's outnumber the
consonants, readability crashes.
P.113 refers to "the notorious
cry of the London thieves --
'_Rescue! Rescue!_' "
On p.26, a footnote explains
that "Doomster" is a professional
Scottish executioner.
--------
[NEXT - AMBER_GRAINS]