Review of Jane Glatt's Captains & Conspiracies

Captains & Conspiracies by Jane Glatt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Trouble brews in Nurmi. Clan Freeholder Timonis has his own agenda. Instead of truly looking out for his people, he abets the pirates who freely plunder and wreak havoc throughout the town and he’s shifted the town’s food supplies to an unknown location. There are still a few months left of winter. The townspeople fear they will starve.

The Intelligencers are spread thin, working in pairs to help keep the citizens of the Fair Seas Treaty Alliance alive. Food has been carefully rationed and evenly distributed. Ice fishing supplements their stores and, occasionally, Dagrun Lund manages to bring additional items from distant lands, but danger lies in navigating frozen and treacherous waters. If not for her trait of being able to detect unseen danger, these voyages would be impossible.

This means, however, that she and Calder Rahmson rarely see each other, because he seeks one of the fiends who have caused problems not only for the Alliance but also other places. Pinho is a ruthless tyrant who has one goal – to amass an army to attack Calder’s mother’s land in order to control the timber trade. The wood is extremely precious now because it is needed to rebuild the shipping fleets that pirates destroyed during their rampage against the Alliance. Luck – Calder’s trait – leads him to Zelesso, where Pinho and his pirates are engaged in terrorizing the town into allying with him. Calder, with the help of family and townspeople, is determined to stop them.

Master Intelligencer Nadez has her own worries. Someone meticulous and organized has been stealing the food supplies from the warehouses. Not small bits from each one, but the entire contents of whole buildings. So far three have been emptied and, this time, four guards are missing. She’s certain she knows who is behind the thefts, but she can neither prove who is guilty nor find the missing foodstuffs. Her suspicious are confirmed when he miraculously finds and returns the goods. But why?

Pia, a novice Intelligencer, travels here and there gathering information. She is able to sift out the important details from what she learns and concentrate on how these fit together. She and Gustav Gunnarson are working together when they cross paths with a stranger who calls himself Hakon. Her trait of concentration warns her that he is a dangerous man, perhaps one who shouldn’t be trusted, but they need each other’s help. Hakon will take care of the pirates in Nurmi if Pia and Gustav will take him to the Intelligencer who unmakes things. Who Hakon really is and what his true intentions are remain a mystery – one that Pia is determined to decipher even if it jeopardizes her newfound acceptance as an Intelligencer.

The battle pitting Calder against Pinho is an action-packed confrontation on water. How the pirates, at least the fiendish ones, are defeated is unexpected but provocative. Once in a while the tension doesn’t quite measure up to expectations, and readers new to the series may have trouble following what’s happening and who’s who. Fans familiar with the series will enjoy the satisfying conclusion of this fifth and final book in The Intelligencer series. Loose ends are tied up with some unexpected twists and turns that are sure to please.



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