"He speaks a wave lag from Liverpool, and he can voker romeny." The most noteworthy feature of Michael Crichton's third novel, The Great Train Robbery (1975), is its adroit use of Victorian-era criminal slang as it dramatizes an 1855 British gold theft. "He was a buzzer turned rampsman." The story flows fast, the characters are exaggerated, the atmosphere is distracting, the history is partly true. "He was working his usual operation, with himself as dipper, a stickman at his side, and two stalls front and back." Much of Train Robbery reads like a movie script, which in a way it may have been. "It's fair aswarm with miltonians." Cute, lightweight entertainment.

^z - 2010-01-24