THE 290

As trim a tale as you'd expect from Scott O'Dell, but one more than a little narrow in the beam—just like the Confederate raider Alabama, on which the hero sees action and defeat in the Battle of Cherbourg. Sixteen-year-old Jim Lynne, the son of a New Orleans slave trader and brother of a Yankee spy, is loyal to the ship he helped build as an apprentice in a Liverpool shipyard and to the dashing Captain Raphael Semmes. This, despite Jim's anti-slavery feelings and a near-mutinous detour that he and black crewmate Lem Wilson take on one of Semmes' prize ships to release a warehouse-full of the elder Lynne's Haitian slaves. The point seems to be that loyalty is more a matter of the heart than of the head, and even that point is made only diffidently and inconclusively, though as usual O'Dell's seamanship and yarnsmanship are impeccable.