The Rover's Secret
A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba
By Harry Collingwood
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It was a bit puzzling to to work out who or what the Rover was, and what
the secret was. The word Rover is not mentioned once in the body-text
of the book, and the word secret only three or four times. However,
eventually I sussed it out. The Rover is a pirate who figures enough in
the book for one to be aware he is there. He is mortally wounded, and
in the last chapter he tells his secret before he dies, thus providing
an explanation for several other puzzling things that we have been told,
or that happened, in the book.
On the other hand I was not too happy with the overall style of the
book, which is too florid and long-winded. Practically every sentence
could be greatly shortened without loss, and it is sometimes an amusing
exercise to rest from reading, and then try to re-phrase the current
paragraph.
Apart from those things, the book is written in a style much like that of
Kingston. This is typical of Collingwood, but one sometimes thinks he is
a bit plagiaristic. That doesn't stop it from being quite an enjoyable
book. There is some evidence that there are some missing commas in the
text as I have presented it, but I do not think that this will at all
impede the flow of the story as it unfolds.
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THE ROVER'S SECRET
A TALE OF THE PIRATE CAYS AND LAGOONS OF CUBA