THE TIME PIRATE

Laboriously harking back to the pulp juveniles of yestercentury—or at least their melodramatic plotting and uncomplicated values—Bell presents the continued exploits of intrepid teen Nick McIver, boy time traveler. Bound and determined to become a hero “molded in the face of danger,” Nick stages a destructive raid on a Nazi airfield in 1940, then darts back to 1781 to rescue his kidnapped little sister from the clutches of hook-handed pirate Billy Blood in the Caribbean, recover from wounds at Mount Vernon (“What’s wrong wid dat po’ chile?” asks the estate’s Cook, before stitching him up sans anesthetic) then rescuing De Grasse’s French fleet from ambush off Nassau so it can sail north to ensure General Washington’s victory at Yorktown. Laced with old-timey language, wild coincidences, arbitrarily trotted-out bit players from the Marquis de Lafayette and Winston Churchill to the odd strumpet or Indian warrior, lurid murders (“The dying victims’ blood mingled with the juice from hundreds of crates of tomatoes”) and explosions aplenty, this doorstopper sequel to Nick of Time (2008) may have a certain retro appeal to adrenaline junkies. (Fantasy. 11-13)