THE CURSE OF TREASURE ISLAND

Fourth or fifth “Return to Treasure Island” novel striving to re-create Stevenson’s breezy blood-and-thunder in a new course on the old chart—and tempting the reader with leftover loot still awaiting its return to civilization.

Stevenson’s mesmerizing storytelling voice remains unique, but pseudonymous Bryan (“a very prominent British broadcast journalist”) captures much of the original narrative’s fast action and flying musket balls. With Jim Hawkins now 21, Bryan sensibly upgrades the story from boys’ adventure to young adult, adding a large dollop of sexually subliminal love-interest along with a fresh sense of “drink and the devil” among pirates. Also back: the charming rascality of Long John Silver, last seen making off with a bag of coins and his parrot, Cap’n Flint. Jim is now an innkeeper who has invested his earlier share of the treasure in outfitting his late father’s Admiral Benbow Inn and attracting a higher clientele than rapscallions like Blind Pew, Bill Bones, and Black Dog, who once hid out there roaring oaths and singing “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest.” The first body drops early. Grace Richardson, on the run with her unruly 12-year-old son Louis, approaches Jim to help her find Joseph Tait, the roughest of three pirates left marooned on Treasure Island as the Hispaniola sailed off. On the road, Grace and Jim are attacked by the Duke of Berwick, and Jim accidentally kills him. Then bad guys chasing Grace and Louis fire upon, and attempt to blow up, the Admiral Benbow. Accused of murder by Sir Thomas Maltby, Jim takes Grace and Louis to his uncle Ambrose for shelter. Soon Jim, Captain Reid, and the Hispaniola are off again for the island to find Tait. Is terrible Tait Louis’s father? Is Louis a love child? How old is Grace—too old for Jim? We are kept in the dark until tale’s end.

Full canvas as the blood flies.