Pirates in the South Seas!

Thomson, Keith.  Born to be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates who Raided the 

          South Seas, Rescued a princess, and Stole a Fortune.  New York: Little, Brown & Company, 

         2022.  ISBN: 9780316703611 

Pirates!  Almost everyone's favorite villains/heroes!  But, do we really need another tale of daring do?  Of course we do!  Especially this one where Keith Thomson uses the diaries of various pirates along with court records and other documents to trace out their adventures on land and sea during the reign of Charles II.

In 1680, 300 pirates banded together to rescue a princess of a local tribe from the Spanish.  They used this pretext to go a "pyrating" in the fashion of Captain Morgan across the Darien jungle to attack the city of Panama.  That attack did not quite work out, so they set out to blockade the city until a ransom was given.  Some pirates returned back across the jungle while others decided to hang out in the South Seas and see what treasure they could scrounge up.  But not all pirates were happy with their leaders so a series of mutinies and failed attacks slowly whittled down the pirate band while the Spanish opposition grew.  After finding a decent haul off the Santo Rosario (treasure worth 10,000 pieces of eight) but failed to take the 670 "piggs of metal" (in this case silver worth around a million pieces of eight ) aboard their ship.  But they did get a book with 300+ pages of maps/charts and sailing directions for the South Seas before the Spanish could toss it overboard.  The pirate crew set sail for England going around the tip of South America and barely making to the Nevis in the Caribbean before their ship, the Trinity, fell apart.  The crew split up with several traveling to England where they were put on trial for breaking the peace between Spain and England.  But the fix was in at the Admiralty Court due to the intelligence gained by the "gentlemen pirates." 

If you are interested in true tales of adventure that may have inspired at least one author, pick up a copy of Born to be Hanged by Keith Thomson and be enthralled!

Preston, David.  The Lost Tomb and Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder.  New 

         York: Grand Central Publishing, 2023.  ISBN: 9781538741221

Douglas Preston is half of the duo that writes the Agent Pendergast series (Lee child is the other half). When he is not writing thrillers, Preston writes non-fiction books and articles. This tome is a collection of articles he has written on murders, unexplained deaths, unsolved mysteries, curious crimes, and old bones (those were how he categorized the articles).

 

 Douglas Preston opens with him discovering the murder of a middle school friend who had moved away; another murder explains why he can no longer visit Italy. The unexplained deaths happened in the Himalayas, the Ural Mountains, and Kennewick , Washington. The mysteries involve Oak Island, Sandia Cave (NM), and Hell Creek (MT). The crimes involves a con that was thought impossible by experts, and the ire and blow-back caused by Amanda Knox haters (interesting link back to the 2nd murder story). The final section (Old Bones) discuss the human remains held by museums, the possibility of cannibalism in the American Southwest, and a visit by Preston to KV5 - the "lost" tomb of Ramesses II's sons. All of the articles have updates after the original article and have listed the original publication dates and journals. 

 

If you enjoy the topics or have enjoyed other non-fiction titles by Preston, pick up this book and read!