Monday 13 August 2012

The Scottish Prisoner

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Historical, Mystery, Fantasy
Rating: A-

In the course of The Scottish Prisoner Lord John Gey and Jamie Frasier team up in order to arrest a dishonourable Englishman and maybe stop a Jacobean plot on the way.  The plot is as such: after returning to London Grey receives a package of letters that detail the illegal doings of Major Gerald Siverly, who Grey and his brother, the Duke of Pardloe, decide needs to be brought to London for justice – a task which requires journeying to Ireland.  Within the package is a poem written in Irish Gaelic, so Pardloe summons Frasier in order to translate it as best as possible.  While all this is going on, Frasier has also been approached by Irishman Tobias Quinn, who he knew before the Rising of 45.  Quinn talks of another Rising, this one in Ireland, and it doesn’t take a genius to put one and two together to see where this plot is going.

In the course of The Scottish Prisoner Lord John Gey and Jamie Frasier team up in order to arrest a dishonourable Englishman and maybe stop a Jacobean plot on the way.  The plot is as such: after returning to London Grey receives a package of letters that detail the illegal doings of Major Siverly, who Grey and his brother, the Duke of Pardloe, decide needs to be brought to London for justice – a task which requires journeying to Ireland.  Within the package is a poem written in Irish Gaelic, so Pardloe summons Frasier in order to translate it as best as possible.  While all this is going on, Frasier has also been approached by Irishman Tobias Quinn, who he knew before the Rising of 45.  Quinn talks of another Rising, this one in Ireland, and it doesn’t take a genius to put one and two together to see where this plot is going.

I think this novel really tied up some of the loose ends of the previous Lord John books, particularly in regards to the friendship between the two men.  Having read the Outlander books I know that they become good friends again, and The Scottish Prisoner shows just how they do so.  Things might not be exactly perfect between the two of them at novel’s end, but I at least have an idea of how they’re going to end up at the point of friendship that they’re at by Drums of Autumn.  I am getting a bit bored of the Jacobean threat plot line in the Grey books, it seems to pop up every other book or so.  At the same time, though I only have one more story (to date) in the Lord John series to read, and I suspect that Gabaldon will have to stretch a bit to write a story connecting Jacobeans and zombies.  While this wasn’t my favourite story in the series, I did like it, overall.  For the most part it was able to really stand on its own, although as usual there are many references to events both in earlier Lord John novels and in Voyager, so I wouldn’t recommend skipping over them before reading this one – even if Gabaldon’s note at the start of the novel says otherwise.

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