CAPTAIN KIDD: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal, past as prologue?

CAPTAIN KIDD: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal
SAMUEL MARQUIS
Diversion Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$34.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The breakneck adventure of war, romance, politics, and betrayal, where noble gentleman privateer William Kidd becomes a scapegoat, and Crown and crew sink to unfathomable depths to brand him pirate enemy #1.

Captain William Kidd stands as one of the most notorious “pirate” outlaws ever, but his notorious legend is tainted by a bed of lies. Captain Kidd has captivated imaginations for over three hundred years and inspired many stories about pirates, but was he really a criminal? Just how many ships did he plunder, how many men did he force to walk the plank, and how many throats did he slit? Or is the truth more inconvenient, that he was a buccaneer’s worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians?

In Captain Kidd, his ninth-great-grandson, writer Samuel Marquis, reveals the real story. Kidd was an English-American privateer and leading New York husband and father, dubbed “trusty and well-beloved” by the King of England himself and described by historians as a “worthy, honest-hearted, steadfast, much-enduring sailor” who was the “victim of a deliberate travesty of justice.” With honors far more esteemed than the menacing Blackbeard or any other sea rover at the turn of the seventeenth century, how can Kidd be considered both gentleman and pirate, both hero and villain?

Marquis’ biography clears the foggy haze of five centuries of legend and British propaganda to illuminate the seafaring adventurer and civic leader. He scrupulously recreates Kidd’s perilous world of explosive naval warfare, the daring integrity he exemplified as a pirate hunter, and the political scandal that entangled Kidd in British-American history, rocking the New World and the Old and threatening England’s valuable trade with India.

Captain Kidd is both thrilling and tragic. Behind the legend is a real man woven into the tapestry of early America, rendering him a unique colonial hero and scapegoat, whose life story was fascinating, exciting, bizarre, and heartrending.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: From "privateer" (government-endorsed pirate) to "pirate" (privateer who pissed someone powerful off), Captain Kidd really comes alive in his ninth(!)-great-grandson's retelling of his biography. It's quite a tale indeed. Even sticking to well-attested facts in court records and sources of like stature, it reads like a novel.

That is not an indictment of the author's veracity but a comment on his story's narrative flow. The endnotes, hugely extensive, are not included in the ebook. They are redirected to the publisher's website via a link or a QR code, both of which I followed to be sure they went where I expected them to go. I'm mildly disgruntled by this.It is a decision that, I suppose, stems from the publisher's presumption that most people don't give a toss about endnotes, so why not...what? does it cost less to do it this way? is the same thing done in the print book?...anyway, it cost the book a star.

While the horror of what happened to Kidd was in no way acceptable to modern eyes, neither were his actions. A privateer might be commissioned by the government of the day to do damage to others' economic well-being, that kind of mercenary fig-leaf is seen in today's world as dishonest whole and entire. It still happens, especially where official government involvement in an activity would cause major PR problems (as ICE is demonstrating very capably right now), but we can ignore it until someone gets pissed off who has the power to make the one they're mad at suffer the consequences widely spreadable.

Any of this ringing some bells?

Kidd's execution was awful to read about, again because the author's storytelling chops are very much on display. It is amazing how much documentary evidence, anecdotal or not, still exists about Kidd. Author Marquis has, I am morally certain, clapped eyes on every single extant source for this grisly tale. It is a feat that took decades, and determination far greater than the ordinary, to accomplish. That he is a descendant of the man unjustly accused, and hanged—twice!—no doubt turbocharged his natural-to-writers research skills. What made it fun to read was both the subject matter...what little boy, however old he may be, isn't delighted by a pirate story?...and knowing while reading it that the author's telling a true family tale.

Maps, and notes, added to the text and I'd be warbling my fool lungs out about the story. as it is, I/ recommend you procure one if you're a superannuated pirate-loving kid like me, or if your dad/grandpa is, or if you're in the market for a story of government-by-grumpiness story to make today feel a tiny bit less unprecedented.

You might not feel better but knowing it's happened before has much to teach us.