The Dagger Quick (The Dagger Chronicles)

by Brian Eames

A stirring tale of rousing old-fashioned adventure, THE DAGGER QUICK is the story of twelve-year-old Christopher, a boy with a clubfoot seemingly doomed to follow in the boring footsteps of his father as a cooper in 17th century England. That is, until he meets his uncle- William Quick, infamous pirate, and the only man ever crazy enough to steal from the infamous Governor of Jamaica. With his mother kidnapped, his father murdered, and Christopher unjustly blamed for the crime, he has no choice but to set off on a dangerous seafaring adventure with bounty hunters on his trail and his only ally an uncle he hardly knows.

• ISBN10: 1442423110
• ISBN13: 9781442423114
• Publish Date: 10 May 2011
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Paula Wiseman Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

I wasn't as impressed with this book as I wanted to be. The language seemed a little bit stilted and the story quite contrived.

For example, the dialogue would shift to using absolutely NO contractions even where the dialogue would flow better to using many contractions. Through the same characters. And there was even a time where a character said (fairly late in the book), "I ain't never seen Mum scared," which totally contradicts the language that's been used in the book thus far, even by this same character. And then flip through a couple pages, and everyone's using phrases like "Whatever for?" and "I know not." I'm sure Eames was trying to evoke the atmosphere of the time era through the dialogue but it was very inconsistent and didn't lend itself to the story the way I'm sure he wanted it to.

Besides this, most of the story that I wanted to know about most was compressed into "retellings" through the dialogue. Like the hint that Van was actually a traitor (which I wish was planted as a secret to the audience as well; it was annoying to read everyone's reactions to this knowledge when the readers knew he was the rat right off the start) was just told to the audience and to Kitto through William. Everything of action was just TOLD to us.

And then (SPOILERS!!)

Kitto's clubfoot. Why did that foot have to be eaten by the sharks? It seems like a way to just escape it without coming to terms with it. "Oh, now no one will think I'm lame anymore!" I was hoping that by the end of this book Kitto would come to accept himself and accept that not everyone treats him the way they do because of his foot. Getting it snapped off by a shark just makes it seem like cheating the issue.

But anyway, it's not terrible, but it's just not my cup of tea, I guess.