Fleeing the Jurisdiction
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £5.49
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
PLEASE NOTE:
PLEASE NOTE: Although this book is part of the IRISH LOTTERY SERIES, there is no cliffhanger. Though it is true that the characters get older as the series progresses, each book is a complete story, and can be enjoyed without having read the previous book.
It's danger on the high seas for the Barnetts, but will it come from the authorities, Mother Nature or family Flood?
In Wisconsin six years ago, Ursula Barnett accidentally defrauded her local church of thousands. The statute of limitations is inching closer, and the police are circling in. Panicked, Ursula books herself and her American family passage on a budget centennial Titanic cruise, hoping to ride out the investigation and embark a woman redeemed.
But lurking amongst the leaky walls of the Queen of Crabs is a danger worse than disgruntled, poorly-paid staff, bad food and terrifying onshore excursions: her Irish family, still resentful of the Barnett's lottery win years earlier. Sister-in-law Fionnuala Flood, knowing Ursula is a sitting duck for the next twelve days, rallies the family to retaliate, stopping at nothing to drag lady of leisure Ursula back down into the gutter that is their own life. The Queen of Crabs, though, is not Derry, Northern Ireland, but an alien battlefield, where the Barnetts and Floods find more enemies lurking outside the family than within.
Fleeing The Jurisdiction is equal parts Titanic, Love Boat and Voyage of the Damned, a darkly comic story of family relationships, the politics of envy and, perhaps, some personal redemption.
Customer Reviews
It's A Riot!
Once again I was reminded just how good it is reading a Gerald Hansen novel as I immersed myself in his latest hilarious romp, involving the latest shenanigans of the Barnetts and the Floods. If you've not read a Gerald Hansen novel, where have you been?! You don't have to have read the first two books in the series (though you should!) because Hansen skilfully feeds us the backstory where we need it.
In this book, Ursula Barnett - she with the famous eggplant bob! - and sister-in-law Louella are on the run after appropriating the church funds. They need to lie low for the last remaining part of their `jurisdiction' and they decide it's a safe bet booking themselves and their husbands on a cruise which they think is going to be opera but no, that would be far too straightforward. Instead all the passengers have been diverted onto the commerorative Titanic cruise by the scrimping cruise outfit Econo-Lux. Meanwhile Fionnuala Flood's hapless daughter, Dymphna, has won a place for four on the very same centennial cruise - the Titanic being Fionnuala's favourite film of all time. Inevitably things don't quite turn out as the Floods planned and they find themselves below deck having to work their passage while the rich enjoy the luxurious life above deck. Or do they? With a name like The Queen of Crabs we know this cruise liner is heading for disaster and a storm imminent as we wait for the Barnetts and the Floods to coincide.
The book is meticulously plotted with hilarious comedic misunderstandings for which Hansen is famous! Watch out for a scene involving mushrooms! Then there's the side-splitting nappy-changing fiasco courtesy of Dymphna. With lines like: `Slim's obesity was always the elephant in the room' and `hair like Einsten's only purple' you can't fail to be impressed by the author's biting wit.
Hansen's vivid character portrayals and fast-moving plot keep you on tenterhooks. You can't wait for the Floods and the Barnetts to meet and you're dying to know the whereabouts of the plucky nine-year-old Siofra. Add a bit of intrigue with a couple of dodgy secret agents and you have all the ingredients for a masterpiece. Don't miss.