BLACK MUTINY The Revolt on the Schooner Amistad

Captured by a neighbor in Africa and held captive aboard the Spanish slave ship, Amistad, Cinque is headed for Cuba's plantations. His fortune after recapture, the trials and the well-intentioned delays of white abolitionists, meticulously researched and put into historical context by Owens, should be an engrossing, pivotal episode in history. In this pedestrian account it becomes an ungainly game of fact and fiction. In spite of a passionate performance, Hill's many talents are wasted. He breathlessly wades through language both pedantic and pathetically laced with stilted conversations that may be authentic but ring untrue. The heavy irony of the denouement sinks all. S.B.S. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 98]