Absolute Honour - Tapa dura

Críticas

Absolute Honor C.C. Humphreys. St. Martin''s/Dunne, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-35824-6 In the latest installment to the rollicking Jack Absolute series (after The Blooding of Jack Absolute), Humphreys borrows from Sheridan''s The Rivals to tell a highly successful adventure story with a large dose of romance. After surviving the Battle of Quebec and a long winter in the New World, Jack is ready to return to England and rejoin the 16th Light Dragoons. Aboard the slave ship Sweet Eliza, Jack befriends Red Hugh McClune, an Irish grenadier with mysterious intentions. Once in England, Jack and McClune travel to Bath, where McClune''s unattached cousin, the lovely Laetitia Fitzpatrick, piques Jack''s fancy. Their courtship proceeds smoothly until Jake finds himself unwittingly lured by Laetitia into a seditious conspiracy, and when Jack''s superiors dispatch him to go undercover in Rome, the truth about those he thought he knew becomes tragically apparent. With his way with words and swords, Jack proves once again to be a dynamic hero-an honorable spy with a soft spot for love-and a bangup leading man for what is fast becoming a rousing, must-read series. (Nov.)

Reseña del editor

On his return voyage to England, Jack helps in the defeat of a privateer, gaining a friend in a charismatic Irishman, Red Hugh McClune, along with a large share of the prize money and a nasty dose of cholera.

Saved by Red Hugh, Jack convalesces in Bath where he falls in love with the man's beautiful cousin, Laetitia. But this romance soon turns to tragedy. For there is more than love disguised in Bath. The Irishman is using the affair to lure Jack from his rooms that overlook the Circus and use them for political intrigue: on the day set for the elopement, the King is coming to Bath and Red Hugh plans to assassinate him - for the exiled King James III and all Jacobites.

Jack foils the plot but, because he owes him his life, allows the Irishman to escape the noose. Red Hugh flees to Rome, taking Laetitia with him. Jack pursues to infiltrate the enemy. But recognised and betrayed by Red Hugh, he spends the winter in jail. He escapes to discover that Laetitia has married an aged Roman count to gain money and power for the cause, and that Red Hugh has gone to Portugal to join an Irish regiment raised to fight the Spanish. Jack's own regiment, the 16th Dragoons, is also there and Jack rejoins them to fight the war, charge with the cavalry at Valencia de Alcantara and defeat the schemes of the Irish traitor ...