So Near, So Far (Parkinson, C. Northcote, Richard Delancey Novels, No. 5.)

Rating:
Summary: Weakest of the Delancey Series
Review: _So Near, So Far_ is the weakest of the Delancey novels. None of the series are particularly strong on supporting characters and general characterization, and this one does even less. But where it really breaks down is in the plotting.

The story is made up of several distinct and disjoint episodes, which sometimes works in adventure stories, but usually there is a connecting thread or series of lessons that builds to the finish. Not here -- a chapter ends and that's it, except fot an occasional reference to prior events thrown in for forms sake.

An example: A steam driven ship and its inventor are introduced, built up, and brought back a chapter or so later. At this point -- in the course of a single page -- it is sent on a mission, damaged and sunk. (It had me thinking of the Mark Twain story where, repeatedly, inconvenient characters wander out into the yard, fall down the well, and drown.)

There are also several odd shifts in tense or point of view. It's a bit odd to suddenly find two sentences written as if from looking back over Delancey's entire career slotted into the middle of a page of present tense narration.

One of my favorite parts of books of this type are the supporting characters -- Forester's Brown and Bush, Kent's Herrick and Allday, etc. The only distinctly drawn character here is a spy -- and he is distinguished by being mysterious.

I'm a fool for this kind of story -- have read the Forester/Hornblower (multiple times), Kent/Bolitho, Parkinson/Delancey series in their entirety, all but one of the Maynard/Lamb tales, and have five of the Pope/Ramages.
The Parkinson stories are noticeably weaker than any of the other series, and _So Near, So Far_ (which was very hard to find -- many thanks McBooks for the new edition!) was a major disappointment.