Prince Rupert, the Buccaneer

Prince Rupert of the Rhine was a prince, a commander in the king's armies, a nobleman. Then the Civil War was lost, and his men were sold into slavery across the Caribbean. Now the only thing standing between him and their freedom is the very thing he once despised: the buccaneer's code. In Tortuga, Rupert strikes a desperate bargain with the French governor: his fleet will raid Spanish holdings for the crown, and in exchange, the prisoners will be freed. But the Caribbean waters are treacherous, the enemies are countless, and every raid risks everything. What follows is a swashbuckling tale of loyalty tested, honor weighed against necessity, and one man's descent into the brutal world of piracy to reclaim what matters most. Hyne crafts Rupert not as a romantic hero but as a man of contradictions, forced to become the very thing he fought against in order to save those who once fought for him. It is adventure fiction at its early 20th-century best: propulsive, morally complex, and utterly unafraid to explore the gray spaces between justice and survival.