The Outrageous Fortune of Abel Morgan

Starred review from January 1, 2019
Slings and arrows abound in a fast-paced olio of pirating, adventuring, and revenge-seeking by Abel Morgan and, to a lesser degree, his father, Christopher. Readers won't be sure what the author is up to until the end but will gladly suspend disbelief as they are drawn into this seventeenth-century adventure. In fact, there is more to nearly everything in the story than it seems at first, and unexpected plot twists along the way beg open-mouthed, gasping astonishment. Veteran children's author Jefferies delivers outstanding storytelling in her first novel for adults, adding a depth of meaning not found in many swashbuckling adventures by improvising on the themes of Hamlet?fathers and sons, virtue versus revenge, and the lurking power of a guilty conscience. Abel is kidnapped, conscripted aboard a privateer, turns pirate, and lands in Port Royal, Jamaica, just before the earthquake of 1692 there. Meanwhile, Christopher runs the Rumfustian Inn in England, makes a hasty journey in search of his son after he is led to believe that Abel is enslaved in Constantinople, and returns home with a surprise. For more high adventures, try Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes (2009); and for a literary approach to father-son relationships, read Elizabeth Garner's The Ingenious Edgar Jones (2009), Leif Enger's Peace like a River (2001), and, of course, Shakespeare's Hamlet itself.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)