Incredible Hulks

Rapscallion
James McGee
Harper Collins

One of the last "conventional" books that I bought for my dad before he passed away was McGee's Rapscallion. For those of you who have been with me for awhile, you will recognize the author from an earlier post when I reviewed The Resurrectionist. I'll be honest ... the writing hasn't really improved and the characters are no further developed. That's the bad news. The good news is that Rapscallion had both an interesting plot and enough of an historical bent to keep me engaged. I daresay I actually learned something.

Did you know, for example, that during the Napoleonic wars, Britain used hulks (ships that are afloat, but incapable of going to sea) moored on the Thames as prisons? It's true! The living conditions on these ships were abominable and it was not uncommon for the mortality rate aboard the vessels to hover around 30%. It is said that on a warm day, the smell coming off of these ships was enough to pollute the air from bank to bank. Gross.

Unfortunately, while mildly entertaining and somewhat educational, Rapscallion was unable to distract me from missing my dad. In fact, I think it made me miss him more. In the last couple of weeks before he died, we had started to read this one together. It had been a long time since I had read aloud to anyone and we had only gotten a few chapters in before it became too much of an effort for him. Sigh. This one gets one sad and lonely star out of five.