The current fashion for pirates is either puzzling or an amazing testament to Johnny Depp, don't know which. The pop-scholarly arguments that pirate councils had significant non-racist or proto-democratic power structures don't convince me often, but they do leave breathing-room for historical revisionism. And through that narrow gap, that hawse-hole of believability, climbs this swashbuckler in which a mostly-reformed pirate beats annoying Tidewater gentry at their own games. He has the help of freed slaves, a woman with a past, and an ex-schoolteacher, so's there's something for everyone.
It isn't just twee Flynnery. There is a great deal of grim material in the dawning 18th c., on land as well as at sea; and it's not clear in this first novel whether the reformed pirate will pull it off. The gore and cruelty is battled against more than it's wallowed in.
There should be more sailing; maybe the sequels have it.
ISBN: 0380804522
So wrote clew in Fiction (20th c.). | TrackBack