Books

Review by Francis Shepard

Having read three chapters of this substantial novel, I am compelled to read on. So far I have met a young woman called Irin, said to have supernatural powers and held in captivity for research. My second encounter has been with Cory Walker, captain of an un-named ship, presumably stolen in an act of piracy. This Corey runs aground on the shores of a continent said to be equatorial, known to him through the coastal town of Whiteshore. Equipped with a ‘crimson katana’ and his trusted first mate Gatsby, the captain meets necessary contacts and then proceeds to attack the heavily-guarded residence of one Delucci, a vile, murderous criminal who keeps a harem of kidnapped young girls. Unable to tolerate such a situation, Corey goes in, pistols blazing and katana flailing. Though ready enough to burn down the villain’s sumptuous mansion, he himself does not burn. The Devil in Whiteshore is the second chapter’s title. Is the Devil Delucci? Or Corey? Or is all this connected with ‘a secret lab in a mountain somewhere’ and the angelic figure it has imprisoned centuries before?

The writer Ben Edwards does not hold back from gory decapitations seen, in the novel’s context, as summary justice. Nor, contrastingly, from delightful sensual detail as a love affair begins to form. The expression is colloquial rather than literary and yet there is strong adjectival use that made me visualise all the scenes through which Corey passed. Like most contemporary novels it is written in the present tense; when antecedents are narrated there is occasional non-agreement of tenses but that is a grammarian’s issue, so let it pass: it is a story that nonetheless races along.

That’s why I would commend the book. The tale moves through swathes of times and expanses of sea and land. The figure of Corey, for all his valiant deeds, remains a humble person, his gallantry of a sort that keeps hyper-masculinity at bay. Yes, you could introduce him to your mother. For all the crimson katana hanging at his side.