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Indiana Jones
The Pirates' Loot
Novel
Written by J.N. Fox
Cover art by Vince Natale
1994
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Indy and a young acquaintance, Rachel, seek
to solve the mystery of a long-missing man and a legend of
buried treasure.
Read the "Early June 1912" entry of the
It’s Not the Years, It’s the Mileage Indiana Jones
chronology for a summary of this book
Notes from the Indiana Jones chronology
This book takes place in June 1912.
Didja Know?
The Young Indiana Jones original novels (not to be
confused with the
Young Indiana Jones Chronicles novelizations)
are a series of juvenile novels written from 1990-1995.
Though numbered 1-15, they do not take place in chronological
order and cover the years 1912-1914. Young Indiana Jones and
the Pirates' Loot is book #14 in the series.
By the time this book opens, Indy's mother, Anna Jones, has
died. It's not mentioned directly here. According to Indiana
Jones: The Ultimate Guide, she died
of scarlet fever
on May 16, 1912 (less than a month before this story), and
would have been 34 years old.
In this story, Indy twice encounters what seems to be a
legitimate ghost, that of
a young girl named Hannah Chase. As far as is known, this is the first of
what will be many brushes with the paranormal in his lifetime.
Notes from
The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones is a 2008 publication
that
purports to be Indy's journal as seen throughout The
Young Indiana Chronicles
and the big screen Indiana
Jones movies. The publication is also annotated with notes
from a functionary of the
Federal Security
Service (FSB) of the Russian Federation, the successor
agency of the Soviet Union's KGB. The FSB relieved Indy of his
journal in 1957 during the events of Indiana
Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The notations imply the journal was released to other
governments by the FSB in the early 21st Century. However, some
bookend segments of The
Young Indiana Chronicles
depict Old Indy still in
possession of the journal in 1992. The discrepancy has never
been resolved.
The journal as published skips over this time in Indy's
life. In fact, it goes from September 1909 to June 1912...a
period of almost three
years! Though
The Pirates' Loot takes place in June 1912, it must
be just before Indy's June 8, 1912 entry in the journal because there he says
he and his father have moved to Utah, while in our current
story, they are still living in
Princeton, New Jersey.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this story
Indiana Jones
Henry Jones, Sr.
(mentioned only)
Helen Seymour
Maude Parsons
Captain Parsons (Maude's husband, mentioned only, deceased)
Dr. Daniel Parsons (mentioned only)
Benjamin Parsons
(mentioned only)
Fletcher
Rachel
Morag McBride (dies in this story)
Owen McBride (mentioned only, deceased)
Elspeth McBride (mentioned only, deceased)
village man
Hannah Chase (ghost)
Ezra Chase
(skeletal remains only)
Charlie Franklin
Comstock family
(mentioned only)
Ethan Chambers
Mrs. Payne
Lindy
(mentioned only)
Sheriff Walter Brookfield
deputies
As the book opens, Miss Seymour and Indy are driving away in a
Tin Lizzie to meet her friend Maude Parsons. A
Tin Lizzie is a Model T Ford automobile, manufactured from
1908–1927. But the "Tin Lizzie" nickname for the Model T did not
originate until 1922!
Indy is angry that
Miss Seymour volunteered to take him along on her visit to see
her old friend because he'd hoped to explore
Boston
while his father attended a meeting of historians at
Harvard University.
Miss Seymour is still staying with the Jones' at their
Princeton
home even though
The Titanic
Adventure
had said that she was staying for just three weeks and that was
in mid-April. It may be that Mrs. Jones fell sick with the
scarlet fever during Miss Seymour's visit, so Miss Seymour stayed to
help and has extended that stay even more after Mrs. Jones' death to
help care for Indy while Professor Jones mourns.
Miss Seymour and Maude Parsons met and became friends when they
were just young girls in
Oxford,
England.
Maude's farmhouse home in Maine is called Sea View.
Maude tells
Miss Seymour she was sorry to hear about her dreadful experience
on the Titanic. This refers to the events of
The Titanic
Adventure,
where she and Indy were aboard the "unsinkable" ship on its
infamous first and final voyage about two months before.
The lighthouse
Owen McBride had worked at while he lived is located on Eagle
Island, Maine. There are eight small islands off the coast of Maine
known as "Eagle Island". Only one of them, in Penobscot Bay, has a
lighthouse on it, but the one described in the book sounds
smaller and closer to the coast than the one in Penobscot Bay.
The "To Find Out More..." section at the back of the book lists
a book that features an entry on "the real Eagle Island"
(presumably the Penobscot Bay island), America the
Beautiful: Maine by Ty Harrington.
Maude tells Indy that her sons live near
Burlington, Vermont.
Indy takes a path near Farley's store to get a view of the
lighthouse. Farley's is likely a fictitious business in Maine.
Rachel's story of how Captain Kidd (1655-1701) became a
pirate on pages 24-26 is only very roughly accurate. Despite
what she says of Kidd becoming a pirate by accident, he had
previously been a member of a pirate crew before he settled
down with a wife and children in New York and was asked by
Richard Coote, the governor of New York, Massachusetts, and
New Hampshire to head up the ship Adventure Galley
to stop the recurring pirate raids and enemy French ships
along the coast in 1695.
On page 27, Rachel mentions the alleged buried treasure of
Blackbeard on the Isles of Shoals.
Blackbeard (William Teach, 1680-1718) was an English pirate
who led an alliance of pirate ships in the West Indies. Some
legends say he left buried treasure there, off the coast of
Maine.
On page 38, Indy reaffirms his hatred of snakes, as he had
stated in
"Safari Sleuth". But the prologue of
Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade (taking place later this same month) indicates that he was not fearful of snakes
until the incident in a circus train car full of them when
he was 13 in that film.
On page 52, Indy suggests to Rachel that they do some real
detective work to find out more about the mysterious Charlie
Fletcher. Just a couple months earlier, in
The Titanic
Adventure, Indy learned some detective
skills from Arthur Conan Doyle and
Sampson/Karl.
On page 56, Morag says she's settled in Concord these days.
There's Concords all over the New England area, so, hard to
say which one she's referring to!
On page 65, Indy tells Rachel that sometimes scientists like
Thomas Edison make their most important discoveries when
they just keep an open mind, when they're willing to be
surprised. Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was an inventor and
businessman, producing many electric products, including a
low-cost, long-lasting electric light bulb. He is also known
for having said, "I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work."
On page 94, Indy ties a slipknot on a
rope in order to rescue Rachel, who is clinging to a
collapsing stairway spiraling up the outside of the
lighthouse. In the prelude of Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade, young Indy is seen as a Boy Scout shortly
after the events of this story, so he may well have learned
to tie many kinds of knots during his time in the Scouts.
(Later, in Princess of Peril, Indy has no problem
untying complex knots because he was an Eagle Scout.)
On pages 99-100, after Rachel has successfully
climbed through the lighthouse window and slipped the rope off
from under her arms, Indy climbs down the rope to the window
to safety as well. In
"Travels With Father",
we saw that Indy is pretty good at climbing rope.
At the end of the story, Indy and Rachel hope they'll meet
each other again someday.
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