The Blackbirder
A captivating and thrilling adventure set on the high seas
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Bestselling author James Nelson brings us another gripping and absorbing maritime adventure. Perfect for readers of Julian Stockwin, CS Forester and Alexander Kent.
"Brilliant...Readers will gladly be swept along by a wonderful plot" -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"A master both of his period and of the English language" -- PATRICK O'BRIAN
"Many threads, at sea and at home, combine to make this a thrilling, un-put-downable period story." -- ***** Reader review
"It is difficult to put this book down right from the start" -- ***** Reader review
"A terrifically exciting adventure!" -- ***** Reader review
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ONE MISSION THAT COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING...
Thomas Marlowe, former pirate and captain of the Guardship, lives prosperously on his tobacco plantation near Williamsburg with his lovely wife Elizabeth.
But when King James, the huge ex-slave who is in command of Marlowe's sloop, kills the crew of a slaveship - a blackbirder - and makes himself the most wanted man in Virginia, Marlowe is forced to go and hunt him down.
Setting off in pursuit of the blackbirder, struggling to maintain control over his crew - rough privateers, set only on plunder - Marlowe follows James's trail of destruction all the way to the shores of Africa.
There, in the slave port of Whydah, James and Marlowe face a common threat - and their final showdown.
The Blackbirder is the second book of the Brethren of the Coast trilogy. Marlowe's story continues in The Pirate Round. Have you read The Guardship, the first adventure of the trilogy?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The lead characters of Nelson's The Guardship are back in this intelligent tale of high seas adventure: landowner and swashbuckling former seaman Thomas Marlowe; his wife, Elizabeth; and his friend, former tutor Francis Bickerstaff. Though Marlowe is but recently settled in 1702 Tidewater Virginia, he has already won the enmity of many colonists--and particularly Frederick Dunmore, a Bostonian of murky origins--by freeing his slaves. As the novel opens, Marlowe is planning to set out to sea. Once he is granted an official letter of marque, he will be able to legally plunder merchant ships hailing from countries hostile to England in Europe's monarchical wars. But then King James, Marlowe's chief freedman and good friend, kills a slave ship's captain in a brawl, and flees for Africa in the slave ship itself, the eponymous Blackbirder. Dunmore forces the royal governor to withhold Marlowe's letter of marque until he's captured King James, and so Marlowe and Bickerstaff give chase, dreading the inevitable encounter with their friend. A fair amount of high seas action leads to a scene of final bloody treachery in Africa. Almost everybody here has a secret: Marlowe, formerly Malachias Barrett, is an ex-pirate; Elizabeth was once a London prostitute; Dunmore is haunted by what may be murder; King James is shadowed by a sinister ex-slave. Though a few anachronisms slip in , the period atmosphere is a bit thin and a couple of events strain credibility (with six shots Elizabeth kills six men), on the whole this is a creditable adventure tale, deepened by Nelson's unusually detailed and nuanced account of the slave trade.
