BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Judge Hunter’ by Christopher Hunter

OPINION:

THE JUDGE HUNTER

By Christopher Buckley

Simon & Schuster, $26.95, 345 pages

With 16 books and one play to his credit, Christopher Buckley no longer needs to be identified as “the son of William F. Buckley Jr.,” although he has every reason to be proud of the connection.

Writing novels was one of many skills that the senior Buckley honed, but it always took a back seat to his founding and piloting of National Review, his influential syndicated column, his pioneer public affairs television work as host of “Firing Line” and his larger-than-life public persona on both the political and social scenes.

By contrast, Christopher Buckley has cut a narrower but deeper swath as a roaringly funny writer of polished comic novels. It is no exaggeration to say that, today, he is one of the best American writers working the genre. This makes the publication of his latest book, “The Judge Hunters,” a welcome event for all those who appreciate intelligent writing served up with generous amounts of sometimes edgy — but never heavy-handed or morbid — mirth.

In his last novel, “The Relic Master,” Mr. Buckley broke fresh ground by switching from contemporary American settings to a Central European romp dealing with the 16th century politico-religious ferment of the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter Reformation. “The Judge Hunter” is a second foray into historical territory, this time Restoration London and 17th century Colonial America. Once again, the author has done enough homework to dress his comedic situation in fairly authentic period trappings. His fictional characters are three-dimensional, engaging creations and his handling of historical figures, even when he drops them into improbable elements of the plot, is always true to nature.

A prime example in “The Judge Hunters” is Peter Stuyvesant, the choleric, one-legged governor of the New Netherlands, the Dutch West India Company colony in what is now New York, its New Amsterdam capital being the forebear of New York City. It is probably fair to say that — with the exception of the first few years of Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s zero tolerance crackdown — Manhattan was never cleaner than when the compulsively tidy Dutch ran the place before it was annexed by the British in 1664.

As for Stuyvesant himself, the autocratic, peppery old soldier-administrator is brought to life in Mr. Buckley’s pages with more accuracy and insight than in Washington Irving’s burlesque “Knickerbocker’s History of New York” or the soupy Broadway musical “Knickerbocker Holiday,” the only versions of “Old Silver Nails” (so-called for the silver nails that studded his trademark wooden leg, acquired after he lost a limb in a battle in the Dutch West Indies) most modern Americans have ever been exposed to.

It’s a great romp, fast-paced and laced with wit. At the center of it all is a real minor historical figure, Balthasar (“Balty”) de St. Michel, the hapless brother-in-law of diarist Samuel Pepys. In Pepys’ diary, Balty comes across as an importuning nuisance and one of several sponging relatives that the diarist — who was also a senior admiralty official — was plagued by. Mr. Buckley keeps Balty true to form even as he drops him into a fictitious situation that takes him to Boston, Hartford, New Haven and New Amsterdam on the western side of an Atlantic Ocean the real-life Balty never crossed.

But who cares? The adventures he stumbles into, and the colorful array of real and fictional characters he interacts with make for a great picaresque adventure yarn. It might just as well have been titled “Bertie Wooster Meets Peter Stuyvesant” since Balty is more than a little reminiscent of P.G. Wodehouse’s second-most-famous creation (the latter’s butler, Jeeves, being the most famous). Indeed, a lot of what is best about “The Judge Hunters” — the cleverly woven plot and blundering but rather decent, likeable protagonist who is capable of the occasional witty aside — could have come straight from the pen of “The Master” himself.

As with even the best historical fiction, there are a number of nits to pick. The author repeatedly — and mistakenly — refers to baronets as “lords,” which they are not. He has Peter Stuyvesant’s troops equipped with bayonets long before they were adopted by armies still reliant on mixed formations of musketeers and pikemen. He describes an innkeeper’s “sidewhiskers,” a tonsorial style that didn’t come into fashion until more than a century after the 1660s. And he bequeaths Peter Stuyvesant a “carriage” he probably never owned, describes it as being drawn by one horse (carriages are drawn by at least a pair) and has Stuyvesant driving the coach himself, which would not have happened.

Big deal. Christopher Buckley, as always, has delivered a clever literary entertainment that manages to be both warm and wry. This reviewer eagerly awaits his next creation.

• Aram Bakshian Jr., a former aide to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan, has written widely on politics, history, gastronomy and the arts.