Customer Reviews

Jade Rooster

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If Patrick O'Brian Read More Noir...


Jade Rooster
By R.L. Crossland
Reviewed by Chris Knopf


There are worse things than being compared to Patrick O'Brian. And that's good news for R.L.Crossland, because comparisons between his historical naval thriller/crime story and the tales of O'Brian's Captain Aubrey are inevitable.
Both share an almost hypnotic evocation of the past, with rich descriptive detail and an encyclopedic command of nautical terminology and the vernacular of the times.
Where they begin to part company are the times themselves - for Crossland, it's early 20th century Asia, in particular Japanese-occupied Korea. A time that most readers, even lovers of exotic sea yarns, will find unfamiliar. Crossland's style, like O'Brian's, effectively captures the mood of this extremely alien environment, signaling from the first pages of the book that this ain't Kansas, Toto. So get ready for something completely different.
The other crucial distinction is that Jade Rooster is at heart an intricate murder mystery, complete with a self-possessed amateur sleuth in the form of Petty Officer Third Class Hobson of the U.S. Navy, a full complement of picaresque characters of questionable morality and several very nasty villains.
The triggering event is the disappearance of the merchant ship Jade Rooster, on a seemingly routine voyage from California by way of Hawaii. Not insignificantly, a tender from the freighter, a whaleboat, has been discovered aimless and abandoned with a cargo on board you could reasonably describe as gruesome (the behavior of some of our current jihadi terrorists come to mind, which should give you the drift).
Hobson's parents were missionaries who raised him in the Far East. Fluent in Japanese and Korean, as well as the hard ways of a seaman's life, he's the ideal choice of the Navy to assist the civilian investigation of this heinous crime on the high seas.
For better or worse, he's also a man of independent thought and resourcefulness, temperamentally incapable of towing the party line, be it military or civilian.
The story moves quickly across geographical and cultural boundaries, landing the reader in occupied Korea, a land chafing under Japanese domination. Hobson's own internal conflicts are ignited by his search for the missing vessel, and a brief encounter with a beautiful, and dangerously free thinking Korean beauty from his past.
Along the way, Hobson is swept up in the revolutionary intrigues of defiant Koreans, the magical mysteries of native shamans, the venality of merchants local and global and the underlying geo-political tensions between East and West that will ultimately erupt into global war.
Though clearly an aside, one of the most entertaining segments of the book is an honor race between a rowboat of Hobson's Pluto, a humble collier, and that of the grand warship Baltimore. Hobson has been given the task of recruiting and training the Pluto crew, and the ensuing contest is both an engaging interlude and an opportunity to see more deeply into Hobson's essential nature.
This is a book for careful readers accustomed to complex plots and non-linear narrative styles. And for lovers of military adventures and good old-fashioned detective stories. If you fit into any of those categories, Jade Rooster is a feast.

JADE ROOSTER

Verisimilitude. The quality of appearing to be true or real.

When I was in junior high school, quite some years ago, my English teacher, Mr. John, assigned the class to write an essay featuring verisimilitude. I looked up the definition of the word and wrote a paper about being at Pearl Harbor during the Japanese attack. At the time I didn't know much anything about Pearl Harbor, the military, or the war, outside of what I knew from history books, learned from research, or heard from my Uncle Lem who had been in the South Pacific during the War. And I didn't know all that much about writing, either, or anything at all about verisimilitude. I suspect my paper wasn't too good. I don't remember what grade I got. I don't want to.

R.L. Crossland's latest novel, on the other hand, defines verisimilitude. R.L. Crossland is verisimilitude!

Indeed, it's easier to believe that Crossland owns a time machine and used it to visit early 20th Century Japan than it is to believe that JADE ROOSTER is a fiction. Unlike my own high school knowledge of Pearl Harbor, Crossland's knowledge of the topics he covers in JADE ROOSTER - early 20th century Japan, the Navy and merchant marine of the day, sailors and their ways - proves encyclopedic. In fact, JADE ROOSTER falls into that category of fiction I so treasure, the encyclopedic novel, where one finds the likes of Dickens's TALE OF TWO CITIES, Melville's MOBY DICK, and Jules Verne's 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. These books prove highly entertaining while being substantially informative.

Crossland writes with a credibility and authority that could only be gained by years in the military. A recently retired U.S. Navy SEAL officer who has written copiously for U.S. Naval Institute PROCEEDINGS and is published frequently on naval matters in THE NEW YORK TIMES, Crossland, a practicing attorney, Sea Scoutmaster, and literary maven whose knowledge of BEOWULF remains unsurpassed among scholars of my acquaintance, holds the rank of master in the craft of fiction. Anyone who has read Crossland's excellent RED ICE will need no further introduction to his special brand of gritty, gripping entertainment.

Anyone who loves the Navy will enjoy JADE ROOSTER. Anyone who enjoys ships and the sea will relish at the adventure of JADE ROOSTER. Anyone who enjoys learning will thrill to the encyclopedic detail of JADE ROOSTER. Anyone who prizes a great mystery will remain enticed throughout JADE ROOSTER. Anyone who appreciates the art of reading should immerse himself in JADE ROOSTER. Perhaps only those who have read nothing except Harry Potter will feel cheated by Crossland; but then again, JADE ROOSTER is an adult book which speaks to readers with fine-tuned sensibilities, adroit literary appreciations, and first class intelligence. In other words, a reader just like you.

I've been meaning to write this review for quite a while. As I read much better than I write, I was having trouble finding the words to capture this unusual and delightful book. I read Sonnet CLV's review and thought, "why this person put my thoughts into words for me."

This story seems to take us in a time machine to pre-WWII Japan. Not only do we learn something about the US presence there and Asian history, we are caught up in a compelling mystery filled with colorful characters, twists and turns. Although this is not a time and place I may have researched, I was delighted to find myself living in it with R.L. Crossland's engrossing tale.

Great mystery - it entertains and teaches!!

Great Story with much early 1900's U.S. Navy in Pacific during early 1900's.
Also very good insight into Japan and Korea during the same period. All in all a GREAT read!

Charles Chosewood
Darien Georgia

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

"Jade Rooster" evokes the milieu of "The Sand Pebbles" (by Richard McKenna) and Marcus Goodrich's "Delilah". Crossland gives us a novel, steeped in the history, lore and culture of East Asia and the US Navy in the era of the Great White Fleet. His experience as a former Navy SEAL allows him to write credibly about revolutionary warfare, seamanship,the intersection between the military, intelligence and diplomatic communities and all matters maritime. he also gives us a glimpse of what wreck diving must've been like in a Mark V suit. To his credit, Crossland gives us understated combat and fighting sequences which makes the book all the more believable. I have a couple of quibbles, but in order to prevent spoilers, I'll stay mum. Great book about the Golden Age of the US Navy. I'm looking forward to a sequel.