1. The story was already full of lots of details and characters; "British Prisoner" was one of the elements not relevant to this novel.
2. We don't know why Jim is keeping the Nevernever side of Demonreach -- and the Ways to the island -- offscreen & unspecified. It may be as simple as him not having all the details worked out in his own mind.
Could be, but we've known that there are Ways to the island since Turn Coat, we also know that one of them at least is very dangerous. The thing is, as I am writing this reply the reason Jim maybe having problems writing about the Ways to the island is, isn't that present a huge security breech? While yeah, the island would allow Rashid onto the dock, but not the island, I wanted to say Cowl, but I think it was Peabody didn't seem to have a problem along with a bunch of giant spiders etc. in Turn Coat. A Warden now being in charge may have put an end to those problems.
