In the Wake of the Buccaneers

In the Wake of the Buccaneers is a seductive blend of travel memoir and pirate history, written by a man who actually sailed among the islands where blood was spilled. A. Hyatt Verrill crisscrosses the West Indies and Spanish Main in the early 1920s, and at every port he visits, he does something more evocative than mere description: he resurrects the dead. The reader stands on the same shores where Henry Morgan drank and Blackbeard raged, where treasure was buried and men were hanged. Verrill writes with the verve of someone intoxicated by his subject, relishing the brutality and cunning of the buccaneers while painting the tropical landscape in lush, sun-scorched detail. This isn't dry history. It's a love affair with outlaws. For anyone who has ever dreamed of sailing in the wake of pirates, this book is the closest thing to actually boarding a galleon.