The Bloody Black Flag
A Spider John Mystery
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Agatha Christie meets Patrick O'Brian in the first book in a new series of swashbuckling historical mysteries featuring Spider John Rush, a most reluctant pirate. 1722--aboard a pirate ship off the American Colonial Coast. Spider John Rush never wanted to be a pirate, but it had happened and he'd learned to survive in the world of cut and thrust, fight or die. He and his friend Ezra knew that death could come at any moment, from grapeshot or storm winds or the end of a noose. But when Ezra is murdered in cold blood by a shipmate, Spider vows revenge. On a ship where every man is a killer many times over, how can Spider find the man who killed his friend? There is no law here, so if justice is to be done, he must do it. He will have to solve the crime and exact revenge himself. One wrong step will lead to certain death, but Spider is determined to look into the dying eyes of the man who killed his friend, even if it means his own death.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1772, Goble's shaky debut and series launch mixes a violent pirate yarn with amateur-detective snooping. To escape law officers hot on their heels, Spider John Rush and his friend Ezra reluctantly join the crew of the outlaw ship Plymouth Dream, which is anchored in a cove south of Boston. They plan to desert as soon as they're safely away from the Massachusetts Bay Colony coast, but Ezra's death aboard the ship disrupts that scheme. Spider John knows that someone on Plymouth Dream must have murdered his friend, and he vows to find the killer and take revenge. At this point, the story could have followed the model of the traditional country house puzzle, focusing on a small pool of suspects. Unfortunately, the pirate vessel is carrying too many eccentric, dangerous folks who could be guilty, from a tattooed religious fanatic to the homicidal captain. Spider John's observations of shipboard life and the scurvy crew are more interesting than the feeble mystery.)
