Last Flag Down

The SHENANDOAH, a warship of the Confederate Navy, sails to the Pacific Ocean, capturing and burning Union merchant ships and whalers. With a crew of kidnapped sailors, mutiny constantly threatens the young captain, who doesn't realize he is being hunted and that the Civil War has ended. Narrator Michael Kramer faces some long sentences, sometimes needing two breaths before finding a period. He lowers his voice for the parenthetical translations of nautical terms, but with few defining pauses or changes of tone, he forces listeners to intuit which words are quotes and which are the authors'. The pleasurable expression in his voice makes the unusual story of the Rebel forces at sea, much of it from the captain's writings, exciting and memorable. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine