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THE JADE ROOSTER Review from December 2007, Naval Institute PROCEEDING
By: me3tv,
Dec 2 2007, 11:12 AM EST
Jade Rooster
Captain Roger Lee Crossland, U.S. Navy Reserve (Retired). Lake Junalaska, NC: Broadsides Press, 2006. 263 pp. $17.95.
China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines of 1913 may be unfamiliar historic or geographical venues for a complex, nautical mystery, but Jade Rooster acclimates itself and showcases a solid, captivating flair for gripping, detailed, exhilarating fiction.
The author wields a unique literary sword, with minimal feints, within an intricate labyrinth of clues and barrels of fascinating data, naval and cultural. Descriptions by clothing, language, and character of heroes (clever, intuitive Quartermaster Hobson, his buddies Oyster Pirate, Tiger Cheng, buck dancer Jackson), simpatico mudangs (shamans), and various high- and low-lifes alike, are flawless. Action and script, occasionally horrific with everything from severed heads to sperm whale intestines "up or down current like scuttlebutt," is contextually appropriate.
Crossland's pirates/bandits/opportunists, in name or demeanor, are more Pirates of the Caribbean than the Mikado/ Penzance variety, but Wallace Beery, Popeye Doyle, Steve McQueen, and Orlando Bloom would blend-in with a theme song from Puccini by the Grateful Dead. After story-integrated brain teasing, tantalizing event and name dropping illusions, the author amiably serves up a summation of historical facts to help readers cull out the fictions.
Roosters—jade, barnyard, barques (funnels), tattoos, et al—symbolized victory during 19th and 20th centuries, teach courtesy per the Talmud, constitute the tenth sign of the Chinese Zodiac, and purportedly protect from yin energy, "the unseen world." Readers feast on plenty of that—in a challenging but eminently engaging and titillating spellbinder.
Reviewed by Alice A. Booher
*****
http://dreadnaughts-bluejackets.com
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