Pirate Latitudes is a posthumous work by the author Michael Crichton, as you can likely guess since his name is bigger than the title of the work. The manuscript was found complete in his files after his death and I believe it is just recently/semi-recently published. In any case I got my copy at Costco for $12 off list price, and I am rather glad of that.
The story is basically that of one Captain Hunter, who, in 1665, sets off with a crew from Port Royal to the Spanish-held island of Matanceros, where there is a treasure ship port. He comes up with an ingenious, some say impossible, plan to capture the treasure and return to Port Royal. The crew of his ship encounters a formidable Spanish foe (who they thought would be guarding the fort of Matanceros) and other dangers after the attack on the fort. As well as this, there is a small plot line regarding the governor of the Jamaica Colony and his new secretary, which really only appears in the beginning and in the end, likely because the story focuses on the pirates.
The plot is basically a good adventure read. Hunter's crew is indeed motley, featuring different characters of different nationalities and ethnicities, showing how the pirate (or privateering) lifestyle really was based on a sort of equality with a somewhat democratic flair evidenced in different scenes throughout the novel. However, the characters of Hunter's crew really seem two dimensional and more there for variety. We get their names and back stories, but we never really get to know them as people. It is unfortunate, because they seemed to me more interesting than the character of Hunter himself.
Then, in the middle of the story, Pirate Latitudes pulls what I will call a "Pirates of the Caribbean 2". The story, which started out believable enough and firmly rooted in historical fiction, suddenly takes a turn for the "weird" when a supporting character, who we are introduced to halfway through the story and sort of floats in and out of the next few chapters, conducts some magic. Then the ship runs into a kraken. And then cannibals. Then the story goes back to its more "historical", so to speak, ways. It all seems very strange and as if it was just thrown in at random.
Another thing is the fact that Lady Almont (the aforementioned spell-casting character) shows up in the battle at Matanceros. This is plausible enough, as she is being held by the Spanish. However, she only appears in a few chapters here and there, mostly as a love interest for Hunter, and then vanishes again for periods of time. This is especially strange during the battle scenes. I found myself thinking, "What did they do with Sarah Almont?", and then she appears later on after the fight. It just seems rather strange and, though I suppose it could indeed happen and have happened back in the 1600s, rather strange and almost as more of a device to get her to Port Royal.
Another gripe I had with the book was that some characters who show up in the beginning then only show up later at the end. Of course this is because the middle of the work is about the pirates and not the Port Royal-ians, but it seems rather strange for these people to be mentioned in the beginning and then not again until the end, especially because some of them wind up playing key roles. This is just a nitpick on my part but it seemed odd to me, especially considering that some of the characters (like Hacklett, the governor's secretary) are presented one way in the beginning, and then entirely different in the end, with no real showing of how they arrived at point B from point A.
All in all, my general feeling once I had finished this book was that we got to know everyone's names and a few of their personality quirks, but we never got to know their motives or their reasoning besides the back stories that Hunter knows of them. I found it very hard to be very interested in any of the characters, except that of Lazue, but that is probably just because she is a female dressing as a man (a la Mary Reid and Anne Bonny) and I am a female reading the book.
On the whole, Pirate Latitudes is a rather enjoyable book. It made for a quick and entertaining read and really was fun to read, too. It wasn't very challenging in terms of what was going on, and aside from a few random scenes (the kraken, Hunter's musing on the word vincit stamped into the canons on his ship), the book generally seems to run at a flowing, smooth pace. However, the characters are somewhat under personalized and are really more identifiable based on the character traits (Lazue is the human telescope, able to see very well and very precicely; Don Diego is the munitions expert; Sanson is an expert killer; Bassa the Moor is the muscles).
Nonetheless, the book really is enjoyable. It's hard to make pirates boring and Crichton certainly does not make them boring at all. The story is interesting and captivating and made for an altogether light and enjoyable adventure about pirates, although at times it did leave me wanting more.
I give it three stars out of five.
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