A PLACE CALLED FREEDOM - Book review

Ken Follett’s novel A Place Called Freedom was published in 1995 and is a fascinating dive into history. 

The prologue or whatever (it’s untitled) is a conceit that we could do without; it mentions an iron neck-collar worn by slaves: ‘This man is the property of Sir George Jamisson of Fife, AD 1767’.

The book is broken into three parts: Scotland, London, Virginia.

Mack McAsh is a young miner in Fife; a slave to the mine owner, Sir George. ‘Life was hard for miners, but it was harder for their wives’ (p116). Mack speaks up about the injustice he and his fellows endure and is brutally punished: ‘... you have to understand that they don’t feel pain as we do’ (p132).

Lizzie Hallim used to play with Mack when they were bairns, but now they are worlds apart. She is attractive, indeed. ‘I can get a husband whenever I like. The problem is finding one I can put up with for more than half an hour’ (p14). Her mother needs Lizzie to make a match that will save their property and land since her father has died leaving much debt. The obvious answer is Jay Jamisson, son of Sir George...

This is a time of unrest in the colonies, Boston boycotting all British import, and even giving up tea!  This problem may also affect the lucrative business of transporting and selling seven-year slaves – criminals sent from England to the New World: ‘130 or 140 convicts packed into the hold shoulder-to-shoulder like fish in a basket’ (p44).

Anxious to have his freedom, Mack escapes the mines and finds himself in London, where he falls foul of the law – thanks to the intervention of the Jamissons. He faces the Westminster magistrate, Sir John Fielding. ‘Fielding was blind, but that did not hinder him in his work’ (p249).

Follett has done his research – as he always does. There’s a passage concerning ‘the Blind Beak’ Fielding in The Fatal Shore: A History of the Transportation of Convicts to Australia 1787-1868) (published in 1986) by Robert Hughes. Fielding, half-brother of Henry, was ‘able to identify3,000 different malefactors by their voices alone’ (ibid p26). Due to the American War of Independence, no more convicts were sent to the Americas, so the prison hulks of Britain were overflowing; the government therefore had to resort to transporting felons to Australia instead of to Virginia.

However, this story occurs before the First Fleet to the antipodes, before 1776 in fact. Jay and George Jamisson are classic villains. The fate of Lizzie and Mack are inevitably entwined.

The 567 pages fly by to a satisfactory ending.

Editorial comment:

‘I think to myself’ (p3) – ‘I think’ is adequate!

‘he thought to himself’ (p214). Enough said...

FFB - Post Mortem

In 1994, when I read this first outing (1990) of Chief Medical Examiner of Richmond, Virginia, Dr Kay Scarpetta, I couldn’t have known that there would be 23 books in the series (and still counting), the latest being Depraved Heart (2015).

Scarpetta is also a lawyer and a consultant for the FBI. The books are littered with all sorts of fascinating behind the scenes forensic activity, anticipating the successful TV series C.S.I. by ten years. So if you’re into such things as analyzing photos, evidence samples, and the study of the time of death, you’ll enjoy a lot of the detail that goes into the development of Scarpetta’s investigations. As the series progresses, Scarpetta builds up a number of intriguing relationships: her niece Lucy, an FBI intern , Benton Wesley a FBI colleague and romantic interest, and Pete Marino a detective, among others.

Post Mortem concerns a serial killer who is on the loose, three women having been brutalised and strangled in their bedrooms, the deaths particularly gruesome. While Detective Marino comes across as a bit of a slob, there grows between him and Scarpetta a mutual respect as they begin to hunt down the killer. The wealth of detail about the pathologist’s research is never heavy-handed, the supplemental characters are interesting, and Scarpetta’s humanity well matches Marino’s cynicism. To compound matters, she has to combat male chauvinism and, worse, somebody has broken into her office computer system and she is being blamed for leaks to the press!

Suspenseful and well written. By now of course Cornwell is a legend among crime writers. This is where it all began.

PS – I never knew she was a descendant of abolitionist and writer Harriet Beecher Stowe (source: Wikipedia).

Ruthless raccoons' rampage

Madrid is suffering from a serious raccoon infestation, and it’s all Disney’s fault. When Pocahontas was released in 1995, thousands of children took to their hearts Miko, the cute little raccoon. Parents went out and bought baby raccoons (kits, they’re called) by the score from pet shops. Unfortunately, raccoons are pack animals and as they grow to maturity tend to become aggressive if they haven’t got any females to court; they bite the hand that feeds them, which results in them being abandoned in the woods, where they can fend for themselves. Moral: wild animals don’t belong in cages and shouldn’t be kept as pets.

Raccoon-Wikipedia common

 

And fend for themselves they certainly do. Since 2007 over 400 specimens of this North American mammal have been captured in Madrid.

This raccoon is known to wash its food and has the Linean name procyon lotor, ‘dog-like washer’. IN German it’s called Waschbär (wash-bear), in French raton laveur (washer rat). The English and Spanish names, raccoon and mapache, come from the Native American languages in Virginia and Mexico respectively.

 

On average, raccoons live for five years; so the current burgeoning population are descendants of those let loose post-Pocahontas.

Raccoon-Wikipedia common

Raccoons cluster in packs of fifteen to twenty, drive out native species, such as the otter, and their bite potentially transmits rabies and other diseases.

The propagation of other invasive species includes the Argentine parrot and Kramer’s parrot – openly sold as pets until December 2011, the Florida turtle (which has been banned from sale in pet shops), and the American mink – also affects the ecosystem. Capture and kill policy is not an easy option; poison and other non-specific methods that affect the rest of the flora and fauna are banned; the use of firearms requires a permit. Still, after almost twenty years the authorities are waking up to this serious health problem.

Condensed from a report in El Pais by José Marcos, Madrid, November 2013.

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