The Great Lunenburglary
Waterborne wackiness abounds in this Canadian caper set in 1922 Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. While the humor seems comparable to say, The Princess Bride, this book’s characters are not gentlemen setting out on a course of derring-do for the sake of justice, but teenage boys trying to find their own place in the world.
Angus Junior is a good boy and a talented musician who suffers in contrast to his extroverted racing boat champion father, while Elias who just lost his father at sea is a schemer, a rebel, and a hard rock musician 80 years too early. Elias’s plan to get their “trash fiddle” music on the radio turns a midnight joyride on Angus’ father’s boat into a huge escapade. The ensuing antics over the course of one night involve thievery, unintended kidnapping, political gangsterism, and wild musicianship, along with instances of gambling, moonshine, and other markers of the Roaring ´20s. The crazy characters who partake in this madness include a statistics/probability aficionado who may become Angus’ girlfriend, a father figure for Elias who is only two years his senior, a demanding celebrity radio show hostess, a schoolteacher who has problems with teenagers, wannabe gangsters who are practicing their mobster diction, and many other quirky townspeople in both Lunenburg and its rival town, Lockeport.
While silliness pervades every single page, its lightheartedness is catching. Would not a teenage boy in 1922, for example, not find someone who grew up in the ´90s (the 1890s, that is) to be an old-timer no longer in sync with the modern world? Heartily recommended for anyone who needs a good laugh (and who among us doesn’t?).
