Customer Reviews

The Blooding of Jack Absolute

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4 star:		(2)
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GA Henty wrote historical novels for boys based on incidents in military history such as "With Peterborough in Spain" and "Cornet of Horse". The usual pattern was some misfortune caused a young lad to have to leave home and join the forces where, after giving an educational spectator view of great men and great events and surviving many escapades he returned made good.

This book follows that basic outline, but, unlike Henty would not make a Sunday School prize. Jack Absolute is a teenage scholar at Westminster School whose extra mural activities are drinking, gambling and wenching. He falls foul of the noble patron of his mistress and has to join the army in North America, where the war with French and their native allies is at a low ebb, to escape the consequences.

There he is present at the Siege of Quebec with General Wolfe. Later he is captured by Red Indians and survives the famous St Francis raid by the American Rangers only to have to spend a harsh winter in a cave with only a Mohawk warrior, a dead bear and a copy of Hamlet for company.

The story is told with great verve and humour and the narrative powers along. Despite the somewhat grim subject matter it is a fun read. A great breadth of subjects is covered, but nothing is skimped - the author is to be commended for his research. That I am eager to start on the sequel "Jack Abolute" must say something.

In summation daring escapades, interesting historical and geographical background, wicked villains and just enough humour. BUT not for the innocent...

As has been said before, this is the "prequel" to the Captain Jack Absolute series by Canadian author C. C. Humphreys. The story takes place between 1752 and 1760. At the beginning of the novel we discover that young Jack grows up illiterate, unhappy, and abused by his uncle Duncan "Druncan" Absolute and his bullying cousin Craster in Cornwall, England. Through spunk and chance, young Jack escapes his tormentors, is reunited with his real parents (Sir James "Mad Jamie" and Lady Absolute) who send him to be educated as a gentleman at Westminster School. In London, he learns more than just the declension of Latin nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. Jack becomes a first rate cricketer, billiards player, punch drinker, and womanizer. The latter causes him to run for his life from a jealous Lord Melbury and into the arms of the British Army. I won't spoil the action and fun that follows, but will say that readers of this excellent series find out how Jack meets his Mohawk friend Ate, becomes a spy, and survives many harrowing experiences in the New World, including the Battle between the French under the Marquis de Montcalm and the British commanded by General Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham (Quebec, Canada 1759). This is a terrific book full of adventure and derring-do. A real page turner.

I would have given this book 5 stars except for a few irritating historical inaccuracies, e.g., the British soldiers facing the French in battle were not referred to as "the thin red line" (p. 283) until almost one hundred years later during the Crimean War at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854. Nitpicking, I know, but attention to small details such as the above makes for a better book, I think.

Excellent book! Even Better than the sequel "Jack Absolute", which is great too. Very powerful characters and exciting story line which begins with Jack as a school boy and leads on to his role in the British siege of Quebec. It has a good balance of historical fact and thrilling fiction with war, rivalry and romance you will find it hard to put down.

With his parents away most of the time, as his mother the actress accompanies his father the soldier on his campaigns, his Uncle Duncan raises Jack Absolute. In an odd way Uncle Duncan cares for the boy especially when he is sober, but he spends much of his waking hours drunk. So Duncan's son abusive Craster plans to watch over the lad with an iron fist.

When Duncan suddenly dies, Jack joins his parents in London. However, Jack gets into deep trouble when Lord Melbury catches him sleeping with the aristocrat's mistress. Taking this as a worse insult than if the youngster slept with his wife, Melbury demands satisfaction with Jack's father. Melbury dies in the duel, but Jack knows he must leave town to avoid vengeance or recrimination. Thus he enlists joining General Burgoyne's Light Dragoons deploying to the New World in the war with the French. After the Battle of Quebec, Jack's escapades turn nastier as Indians allied to the French abduct him and leave him to die in the wintry wilderness. Jack struggles to survive with his goal to return to England.

Jack is at his swaggering best in this terrific prequel (see JACK ABSOLUTE). His escapades on both sides of the Anglo pond are entertaining as he blusters his way in and out of trouble like a youthful Errol Flynn. Historical thriller readers will appreciate his blooding entry into the world if action and adventure.

Harriet Klausner

The Blooding of Jack Absolute is the middle book of the trilogy and an exciting prequel to book one, that introduces the reader to Jack Absolute's origins, and to how he became Britain's top-most spy during the American Revolutionary War. The first installment simply titled Jack Absolute, introduced the two main characters of this fabulous series, Jack himself, and his partner in crime Ate, a Canadian Mohawk Indian. That introductory story was an exciting adventure tale as they both served under General John Burgoyne spying in the wilderness outside Albany New York, rooting out espionage involving the Illuminati and the Freemasons.

This prequel of book two, takes us back to Jack's early days as a young teenager in England. Jack is forever the ladies man who continually finds himself upon a fogged shrouded heath at dawn, with a sword in his hand dueling to defend his honor after a night of female dalliance. Always in trouble in school, with the ladies, or with his tyrannical father, Jack eventually is forced to flee London by the skin of his teeth, his father rescuing his endangered backside from death by enrolling him in the army under General Burgoyne.

Landing in Quebec after a long sea voyage, Jack grows up quick and is tutored on board by seasoned army mates and the mentorship of the general. Once landed, military skirmishes ensue and Jack finds himself fighting for his life as well as for King and Country. Mastering languages, ciphering and cryptography, fencing and engaging in the art of espionage, Jack soon becomes England's prime spy. After one long and blood-bathed battle, Jack is left alone in the Canadian wilderness, thought dead by his fellow soldiers. He is soon found by a local Indian tribe and learns he is to live there as a slave. Together with another lone captive Indian of the Mohawk tribe, the two unlikely men bind a friendship forever. Jack and Ate escape and the rest of the story is their grueling survival during a harsh Canadian winter, scraping and scratching, hunting and bleeding to survive in the wilderness alone. During their long incarceration hiding in a cave with barely enough food to survive, Jack teaches Ate how to read, and humorous scenes abound as Ate acts out Shakespearean plays and falls in love with books and the written word. This aspect follows along in the first book where we find Ate reading James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans to Jack as cannon fire explodes around them in the New England countryside.

Their eventual emergence from their hellish winter experience finally leads them towards enemies, friends, action scenes, endearing human emotions, ladies in waiting, family feuds, military battles, duels of honor and both men's lives within a very short time turn from coming-of-age to hardened soldiers always ready for the next adventure. A well rounded series filled with all the ingredients a reader would enjoy.

A highly entertaining historical adventure, with elements of Henry Fielding (Tom Jones) and Kenneth Roberts (Northwest Passage, etc.) I liked it even better than Jack Absolute, the author's previously written sequel laid during the American Revolution. The first half of Blooding, involving Jack's bawdy antics in Georgian London, is especially enjoyable, and the second half, laid in Canada during the French and Indian War is dramatic and instructive. The book points out that James Wolfe's famous victory at Quebec did not, contrary to the popular perception, mark the end of the war, in fact the book's climax comes with the second battle of the Plains of Abraham the following year. Enough loose ends remain at the end of the book to lure the reader into buying the next installment, which I intend to do.

The telling of the wild life of young Jack Absolute is action-packed from beginning, where the 9 year old is tied up in his drunken uncle's cellar in Cornwall, about to be thrashed by his bully of a cousin against the background of the riots caused by the change to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. An escape, a death, a charge of murder, going into hiding, more beatings and the sudden appearance of Jack's long-absent parents quickly ensues.

Then a scene change to London-town and Jack's school days at Westminster, which includes an important cricket match, carousing at taverns, visiting prostitutes, a wager for a hundred pounds on a game of billiards, a powerful lord ---and enemy-- mistreating their mistress and threatening death, a rape, young love, composing poetry, disruptive theater crowds, secret meetings at Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens wearing masks and duels to the death. And that's just the first part of the book.

Then there's the Battle of Quebec and capture by Indians. It's boys' adventure to the max (although lots of fun for the modern girl, of course!). I'd read JACK ABSOLUTE a while ago, and enjoyed it, but this was even more fun. No super-spy plots needed. This young Jack was fascinating all on his own, with his quickness and temerity, his basic good intentions but wild and reckless youth, set in an exciting and tumultuous time and place. Even as an abused, unlettered child, there was a resiliency and energy that grounds all the adventures and makes it believable that Jack will naturally have an exciting life. The historical detail also adds dimension, as does the right touch of introspection and emotion.

I am absolutely hooked on this series!

A prequel to Humphrey's Jack Absolute, this is a bildungsroman set during the Seven Years War. Humphrey's character is drawn from a character in Sheriden's The Rivals. This is a better written and more detailed book than its predecessor. Both characterization and historical detail are handled better.