BOSTON JACKY

Jacky Faber sails back to Boston and into trouble in the 11th book in this entertaining but increasingly formulaic series.

Returning from her espionage and nude-modeling escapades in Spain, Jacky gets down to business. And there is a lot of business. Teenage Jacky is the shrewd if spendthrift owner of Faber Shipping Worldwide, the new landlord of a tavern and theater, the employer of many and the caretaker of two orphans. Despite her many enterprises and narrow escapes, she now faces a shortage of income and the looming sentence of a dozen lashes, left over from her last time in Beantown. When her fame and infamy collide, Jacky earns the ire of anti-Irish protestors, militant suffragists and several of her closest friends, but as always, she not only survives, but thrives in adversity. However, Jacky still lacks a reunion and wedding with Jaimy Fletcher, due to a perceived indiscretion. More personal and less anchored in major historical events than earlier books, this tale seems like a retread, referencing many locations, major adventures and characters from previous novels; Jacky even stages and acts in a production of In the Belly of the Bloodhound, based on her friend Amy Trevelyne’s novelization of Jacky’s adventures (and, of course, Meyer’s book of the same name, 2006).

This headstrong heroine shows signs of wearing out.