Murder on the High Seas — Gary L. Dorion

Jack, Book Two, is an intense high seas adventure for young adults ages 15 to adult readers of all ages. Book Two transitions from the main characters' youth to early adulthood as Jack Book One ends with Jack's and Jeremy's teacher, Schoolmaster Jerome Whittemore, quitting teaching after a devastating classroom humiliation at the hands of the petulant, scheming Jack. The now repentant schoolmaster who had tried to corrupt his students with his grandiose slavery lessons and secessionist propaganda, decides he must return to the sea to make amends as he realizes he had been unfair not only to his students but to a whole race of people. Jeremy and Jack believe that their former teacher is now reckless and bent on a suicide mission. Jack - who had hated him throughout book one - has a change of heart, and follows him to sea while recruiting his reluctant best friend. They sign for the same sea voyage, unaware that the Helena is a 'devil slave ship'. Whittemore is appalled to see his students on deck on that first night after the ship is well beyond the northern-flowing Gulf Stream. There is no turning back. Whittemore fears for his students' lives but will not abandon his plan to incite a revolt. The master plans to incite rebellion in his first sermon since glorifying the southern white plantation slavery system on the same ship three years past. He refuses to listen to Jeremy and Jack who beg him not to go through with his 'crazy' plan. Intrigue, espionage, conspiracies, mutiny and a hurricane plague the ship's voyage afterwards during its several-month cruise through the Caribbean Sea to the islands of Jamaica and Cuba and to the African coastal islands as Jack, Jeremy, America and Mauricia - the latter who become their Jamaican girlfriends - conspire to take the ship to free the 130 slaves expected to board in Cuba. Book 2 opens with the schoolmaster's sermon - long diatribe against the slave trade and against Captain Pendleton and his enablers who are the crew of the Helena. While in the US Navy, I spent many weeks at sea, and on one Caribbean cruise without seeing land for more than 20 days. One of the warships to which I later was assigned negotiated a hurricane in the North Atlantic above England and that experience inspired some events in the book.