Corsair by Tim Severin is the first swashbuckling adventure in the Pirate series. 1677. On a late-summer’s evening, two ships lurk off the coast of southwest Ireland. Seventeen-year-old Hector Lynch wakes to the sound of a pistol shot as the Barbary corsairs raid his village, and he and his sister are snatched. Separated from each other, Hector is sold at auction in Algiers, and thrown into a bewildering world where life is cheap and only the quick-witted survive. In North Africa, Hector befriends fellow captive Dan, a Miskito Indian from the Caribbean, and the two men convert to Islam to escape the horrors of the slave barracks – only to become victims of the deadly warfare of the Mediterranean. Serving aboard a Turkish ship, their vessel is sunk at sea and by a savage twist of fortune they are chained to the oar bench of a French galley. Desperate to find his sister, Hector finally stumbles on the chilling truth of her fate when he and Dan are shipwrecked on the coast of Morocco.
Pages: 369
Published: 2015
ISBN: 978-1447277460
Buccaneer by Tim Severin is the second swashbuckling adventure in the Pirate series. Sailing across the Caribbean, Hector Lynch falls into the hands of the notorious buccaneer, Captain John Coxon, who mistakes him for the nephew of Sir Thomas Lynch, Governor of Jamaica. Hector encourages the error so that his friends Jacques and Dan can go free. Coxon then delivers Hector to Sir Henry Morgan, a bitter enemy of Governor Lynch, expecting to curry favour with Morgan, but is publicly humiliated when the deception is revealed. From then on, Hector has a dangerous enemy, and Coxon seeks to revenge himself on Hector. Befriended by Jezreel, an ex-prize fighter, Hector meets up again with his friends Jacques and Dan, and the four comrades join the great buccaneer raid, which marches through the jungle along the Panama coastline. But their expedition is soon interrupted – with deadly consequences.
Pages: 368
Published:2016
ISBN: 978-1509851669
Sea Robber by Tim Severin is the third swashbuckling adventure in the Pirate series. Ambushed by a gang of hardened sea robbers headed for the South Sea, Hector Lynch, pirate and fugitive, must navigate their vessel on a nightmarish journey through the stormy seas off Cape Horn. There Hector uncovers the macabre and eerie remains of a small warship entombed on an ice float. Her only crew are two skeletons – the unfortunate captain and his dog, both frozen to death. When his ruthless shipmates abandon him in Peru, Hector learns from the dead captain’s brother that Maria, the young Spanish woman who stole his heart and whose false testimony saved him from the gallows, is now living on the remote Ladrones, the Thief Islands, on the far side of the Pacific. Hector’s epic voyage to reach Maria will bring him face to face with a Japanese warlord who submits trespassers to his island to a deadly duel and a naked Stone Age tribe who file their teeth to sharp points and sail boats that outpace the fastest galleon.
Pages: 349
Published: 2018
ISBN: 978-1509891672