Monday, September 10, 2018

Captain Blood

CrimeReads provides "A Mystery Lover's Guide to Pirate Novels" noting that pirates were, of course, criminals. Treasure Island is first on the list along with others I've read, but there are several I haven't and will consider. Captain Blood I read at a young age. The librarian reported that to my father and I was prohibited from checking it out whereupon I read it sitting at a table in the library. They stopped trying to control what I read.
This entry is a bit different from those mentioned above, as the former primarily feature characters who chose lives of crime. Sabatini’s protagonist Peter Blood does not aspire to be a criminal at all. When we meet him, Blood has traded his life of soldiering and sailing for that of a country physician. After tending to a couple of fellows wounded while fighting on behalf of the Monmouth Rebellion, however, Blood is found guilty of treason and sentenced to penal servitude in the Caribbean. His eventual escape from that fate leads him to a life of piracy and swashbuckling. He becomes the “scourge of the high seas,” but he always manages to adhere to his own code of ethics and honor.

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