A Bottle of Rum
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
August, 1723 -- Spider John Rush believes he has escaped piracy forever. Enjoying rum and chess in a dark Lymington tavern, he dreams of finding passage to Nantucket to reunite with his beloved Em and to finally get to know the son he remembers only as a babe in arms, though the lad must be dreaming of going to sea himself by now. But when a lazy taverner is stabbed to death, one glance at the victim tells Spider the pirate life has followed him ashore and he cannot possibly ignore this bloody crime. The wise maneuver would be to run before authorities arrive, but Spider is denied that choice because he’s already deeply, connected to the crime—he fashioned the murder weapon with his own hands.
The knife was a gift to a young man, one who ran off with the notorious Anne Bonny before Spider could drag him into a respectable life.
Soon, Spider John and his ancient shipmate Odin are dodging accusations and battling smugglers on a trail that leads to a madhouse where patients are dying one by one. Spider finds himself tangling with a horribly maimed former shipmate, vengeful pirates, a gun-wielding brunette, a death-obsessed young woman, a sneaky farmhand and a philosopher engaged in frightening experiments. But death seems to be winning at Pryor Pond, and the next life lost may be the one Spider desperately wants to save.
Spider must brave sharp steel, musket balls, gunpowder bombs, dangerous women and gruesome surgery if he is to find his foolish young friend alive and try once again to put piracy in their past.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Goble's superior third early-18th-century mystery featuring Spider John Rush (after 2018's The Devil's Wind), Spider and Odin, his friend and former shipmate, are trying to leave their law-breaking days behind them while evading agents of the British Admiralty, which seeks to hang them for piracy. The pair take refuge in a Lymington tavern, whose owner, Thomas Bonnymeade, seems content to leave all the work to his wife, Agatha. One night, after serving dinner, Agatha goes upstairs. When she cries "Murder!," Spider and Odin, as wanted men, are hesitant to investigate, but when no else will, they go upstairs, where they find Thomas stabbed to death. To his dismay, Spider recognizes the knife sticking out of the dead man's neck as the property of a young friend of his. Despite the risks of getting involved, Spider sets out with Odin to bring the killer to justice. In a nice twist, the motive is more significant than whodunit. The combination of swashbuckling and deductions remains a winning one.