In the early 20th century, Sally Jones is, variously, a ship's engineer, an accordion fixer in Portugal and, in India, a maharaja's companion and airplane mechanic. She is also a fiercely loyal friend. When her beloved ship's captain, Henry Koskela, also known as the Chief, is wrongly accused and imprisoned for murder, she goes to the ends of the earth to try to prove his innocence. But resourceful though she is, there's one problem: Sally Jones is a gorilla.
She can understand human language, but she can't speak. Her intelligence and her powerful ability to read people's behavior does give her some advantages, though, and her mechanical skills help put her in favorable positions to gather clues that might help exonerate the Chief she sorely misses. A marvelous group of friends keeps her from debilitating despair: a factory worker cum traditional fado singer named Ana Molina, an elegant but crusty accordion builder called Luigi Fidardo and miscellaneous ship workers, police inspectors and Indian royalty.
Award-winning Swedish writer and illustrator Jakob Wegelius weaves together a head-spinning story of mystery, intrigue, love and adventure, beautifully translated by Peter Graves and narrated by Sally Jones via typewriter, a gift from the Chief: "I am going to use it to tell the truth." Wegelius's intricate black-and-white drawings of the extraordinary cast of characters contribute greatly to establishing the flavor of the era, as do the remarkable details about life in shipping ports and on oceans around the world. Will we see more of Sally Jones in future novels? The outlook is good. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor