The Pirate Hunter: Summary and book reviews of The Pirate Hunter by Richard Zacks, plus links to an excerpt from The Pirate Hunter and a biography of Richard Zacks.
The Pirate Hunter The True Story of Captain Kidd
by Richard Zacks
Hardcover: Jun 2002,
400 pages.
Paperback: Jun 2003,
400 pages.
Captain Kidd has gone down in history as America's most ruthless buccaneer, fabulously rich, burying dozens of treasure chests up and down the eastern seaboard. Over the centuries, novelists, relentless treasure hunters, and even historians have stoked his pirate legend. Robert Louis Stevenson, for one, placed "Kidd's Anchorage" on Treasure Island. But it turns out that most everyone, even many respected scholars, have the story all wrong. Captain William Kidd was no career cut-throat; he was a tough, successful New York sea captain who was hired to chase pirates. In 1696, he set out on a near-impossible mission to travel in a lone ship with a mutinous crew, heading 4,000 miles round the tip of Africa to track down a handful of die-before-surrender pirates and then bring back their treasure to the governor of New York and other secret backers.
His three-year odyssey aboard the aptly named Adventure galley pitted him against arrogant Royal Navy commanders, jealous East India Company captains, storms, starvation, angry natives, and, above all, flesh-and-blood pirates.
Through it all, Captain Kidd found himself facing a long-forgotten rogue by the name of Robert Culliford, who lured Kidd's crew to mutiny not once, but twice.
Through painstaking research, author Richard Zacks has pieced together the never-before-told story of Kidd versus Culliford, of pirate hunter versus pirate. Culliford climbed from Caribbean cabin boy to pirate captain, once capturing a ship in the Indian Ocean loaded with gold and several dozen wives and daughters of the local Moslem nobility. He divvied up both the gold and the women. This was an era of tall-masted sailing ships and lords in full wigs; the drama on land played out in the smuggler's haven of New York City and in Cotton Mather -- dominated Boston and in edge-of-empire London.
Across the oceans of the world, the pirate hunter, Kidd, pursued the pirate, Culliford. One man would hang in the harbor; the other would walk away with the treasure. The Pirate Hunter is both a masterpiece of historical detective work and page-turner, and it delivers something rare: an authentic pirate story for grownups.
The New Yorker
Zack's detective work here is thoroughly convincing.
Providence Journal
Crammed with splendid details and historical ironies.
Time
Enthralling . . . Captain Kidd practically swaggers off the pages of this rich, riotous bio.
Booklist
A lively, educational, thoroughly spellbinding trip back in time.
Publishers Weekly
Entertaining, richly detailed and authoritatively narrated, Zacks's account of the life of legendary seaman William Kidd delivers a first-rate story.
Kirkus Reviews
Exciting, well told, and befitting the wild life of a pirate.
Hampton Sides, author of Ghost Soldiers
Here at long last is the Kidd story rendered for adults.
Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family, National Book Award Winner for Nonfiction
Zacks artfully leads the reader through . . . 17th-century villainy, switching all the while between gravitas and wit.
Geraldine Brooks, author of Year of Wonders
For Richard Zacks, history is . . . a raucous, pungent romp through greed, corruption and excess. In The Pirate Hunter, truth is not only stranger than fiction, it's a lot more fun to read.
James Bamford, author of The Puzzle Palace and Body of Secrets
. . . a richly detailed nautical thriller . . . combines exciting escapism with thought-provoking history.
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed
. . . Read it for the history or read it for the adventure -- you won't be able to stop.
Catherine Clinton, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Yale University
. . . a wild ride, filled with enticing and documented detail . . . a riveting and offbeat historical adventure.
Geraldine Brooks, author of Year of Wonders
In The Pirate Hunter, truth is not only stranger than fiction, it's a lot more fun to read.
Stephen Harrigan, author of The Gates of the Alamo
. . . a varnished 17th century world . . . Brimming with authority, eccentricity and grisly detail, it is everything a pirate book should be.
The bestselling author of The Endurance reveals the startling truth behind the legend of the HMS Bounty.
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