So this was a slip up, this poor book was read sometime back in late January and I happened to notice when I was scanning my book list that it had never been posted. Sometimes I add several books to the list at once, which is easy if I have them in front of me. However all too often I've already returned them to the library and have to rely on my memory, never a good idea. My mother will routinely ask me to bring her something from another room and en route I forget and walk right past it. Oh yeah, its that bad. If you have read the poem The Highwayman, you should be all set, in fact you can probably skip the book altogether. It tells the story of the daughter of the doomed couple from Noyes poem, who makes the mistake of trying to rob the runaway son of a nobleman. He helps her recover from the injuries that he gives her and they reach a sort of weird camaraderie, partially over the fate of a deserter who stumbles upon them in search of shelter. In the end they of course turn vigilante and steal from his greedy father in a Robin Hood-esque ending. God triumphs and we can all sleep the restful sleep usually reserved for the just and Errol Flynn.
I was expecting a little more shoot 'em up action, and while there is some of the traditional highwayman action this is not an adventure story. It gets very wordy and overly descriptive time and time again until you want to scream, "He's already built the fire, we get it!" or "Yes its very significant that she let's Will wear her dead father's clothes!" but somehow you still really don't care. Also a good portion of the story is given over to the retelling of the poem, which if you are familiar with it is a waste of a good seventy pages or so. In case you hadn't picked up on it, while I felt bad for not writing this one up, it really was rather forgettable.
