The Blackbirder (Brethren of the Coast) [Hardcover]

James L. Nelson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Brethren of the Coast | Publication Date: February 20, 2001

In the wake of The Guardship comes the second in the Brethren of the Coast trilogy and the swash-buckling adventures of former pirate Thomas Marlowe.

In a blind rage, King James, ex-slave and now Marlowe's comrade in arms, slaughters the crew of a slave ship and makes himself the most wanted man in Virginia. The governor gives Marlowe a choice: Hunt James down and bring him back to hang or lose everything Marlowe has built for himself and his wife, Elizabeth.

Marlowe sets out in pursuit of the ex-slave turned pirate, struggling to maintain control over his crew -- rough privateers who care only for plunder -- and following James's trail of destruction. But Marlowe is not James's only threat, as factions aboard James's own ship vie for control and betrayal stalks him to the shores of Africa.

And it is in Africa, in the slave port of Whydah, that James and Marlowe must face a common threat and their own final showdown.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The lead characters of Nelson's The Guardship are back in this intelligent tale of high seas adventure: landowner and swashbuckling former seaman Thomas Marlowe; his wife, Elizabeth; and his friend, former tutor Francis Bickerstaff. Though Marlowe is but recently settled in 1702 Tidewater Virginia, he has already won the enmity of many colonistsAand particularly Frederick Dunmore, a Bostonian of murky originsAby freeing his slaves. As the novel opens, Marlowe is planning to set out to sea. Once he is granted an official letter of marque, he will be able to legally plunder merchant ships hailing from countries hostile to England in Europe's monarchical wars. But then King James, Marlowe's chief freedman and good friend, kills a slave ship's captain in a brawl, and flees for Africa in the slave ship itself, the eponymous Blackbirder. Dunmore forces the royal governor to withhold Marlowe's letter of marque until he's captured King James, and so Marlowe and Bickerstaff give chase, dreading the inevitable encounter with their friend. A fair amount of high seas action leads to a scene of final bloody treachery in Africa. Almost everybody here has a secret: Marlowe, formerly Malachias Barrett, is an ex-pirate; Elizabeth was once a London prostitute; Dunmore is haunted by what may be murder; King James is shadowed by a sinister ex-slave. Though a few anachronisms slip in (Marlowe "hadn't a clue what was going on"), the period atmosphere is a bit thin and a couple of events strain credibility (with six shots Elizabeth kills six men), on the whole this is a creditable adventure tale, deepened by Nelson's unusually detailed and nuanced account of the slave trade. (Mar. 1) Forecast: Darker, less polished and more contemporary in tone than Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, Marlowe's adventures will either strike O'Brian fans as rough stuff or refreshing fare. But even wary traditionalists may be won over by this superior installment.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Nelson has penned another swashbuckling adventure featuring pirate-turned-privateer Thomas Marlowe. When Marlowe's second-in-command, former slave King James, kills the abusive captain of a crippled slave ship, the governor of Virginia orders Thomas to hunt down his renegade friend. Threatened with financial and social ruin, he embarks upon a bleak odyssey that takes him from the shores of the New World to the west coast of Africa. Eventually coming face-to-face, Thomas and James both realize that they must confront the demons and the enemies that continue to stalk them. This action-packed, authentically detailed sea yarn is distinguished by the sobering moral undertones of its electrifying plot. First-rate maritime fiction in the tradition of Patrick O'Brian. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (February 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380804530
• ISBN-13: 978-0380804535
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,750,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in a log cabin in the sea-side town of Lewiston, Maine.... Okay, maybe not a log cabin. And maybe Lewiston isn't exactly a seaside town. Despite that, my interest in ships and the sea began early, reading Hornblower and building ship models. In high school I built a fifteen foot sailboat, and with a friend, an eighteen foot canoe.
I graduated from Lewiston High School in 1980, if not with honors then at least with a diploma. After a year of hitchhiking and motorcycling around the country, I attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, later transferring to UCLA Film School (Official Motto: '...but what I really want to do is direct...') , from which I graduated in 1986. After working in the television industry for two years, I realized that I could not stand a) the television industry, b) Los Angeles and c) being ashore. In 1988 I joined the crew of the Golden Hinde (rhymes with mind), a replica of Sir Francis Drake's vessel of 1577. There I met a foretop person named Lisa Page, whom I beat out for the job of bosun. Lisa vowed then and there to marry me and make me pay for that for the rest of my life.
Leaving the Hinde in Houston, Texas, I worked aboard the brig Lady Washington (after my time she played the Interceptor in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie) and the ship 'HMS' Rose, (Surprise in Master and Commander, also after my time) I sailed aboard Rose for two years, as Able Bodied Seaman and Third Mate.
In 1993, I 'swallowed the anchor.' Lisa Page, made good on her threat and we married that year. The following year I finished By Force of Arms, my first book. I've been a full-time writer since then, with fourteen books either published or in the process of being published. My books have sold in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Spain. My 2003 title Glory in the Name was selected as the winner of the American Library Association's W.Y. Boyd Award for Excellence in Military Fiction.
Recently, my writing has expanded to include non-fiction. My first work of non-fiction was Reign of Iron, a detailed look at the ironclads Monitor and Merrimack (Virginia). More recently I completed a book about the Revolutionary war naval battle that took place on Lake Champlain. That book is called Benedict Arnold's Navy.
Lisa and I now live in Harpswell, Maine (which really is a seaside town), with our four children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Blackbirder, March 27, 2002

By 

K. Freeman (Apple Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Blackbirder: Book Two of the Brethren of the Coast (Paperback)

Nelson is developing his talents as an author of historical fiction. It's good to see a writer who actually improves as he goes along.

Indicative of this improvement is the amount of historical detail given in this book, the second in the Brethren of the Coast series. Largely about the slave trade, The Blackbirder reveals the depth of the author's research into African cultures of the period.

Ex-pirate Marlowe should by rights be a fascinating character, but he lacks depth -- not merely because he's a rather shallow person, which he is, but because Nelson hasn't developed him sufficiently. He has a certain blank quality. James, the other main character here, is better drawn, but still not quite exemplary. Secondary characters, such as Marlowe's wife and her rakish ally Billy, aren't bad, but aren't fantastic either -- I'd say overall that characterization is a bit of a weakness here, though not disastrously so.

The plot, as one expects with Nelson, is an exciting one -- I don't find the themes here as interesting as his battles-at-sea books, but other readers may well prefer them. I did find my suspension of disbelief faltering at one point, when a psychotic racist tries to imprison Marlowe's freed workers: either they're free, and he would have to have a warrant, or they're slaves, and he's stealing property, and either way, that element didn't quite work for me. Overall, though, the story is fast-paced, enjoyable and holds the reader's attention well.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Could not put this one down!, May 1, 2001

By 

Bill (Charlestown) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blackbirder (Brethren of the Coast) (Hardcover)

Like all of Nelson's books that I have read, this one is fast-moving and historically accurate, but for some reason the characters and the plot grabbed me even more this time. Maybe because of the many twists the plot takes, or the unusual situations, but I loved this book! Read The Guardship first, to know where the characters are coming from (you won't be dissapointed) and then read The Blackbirder.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Great Yarn, March 26, 2001

By 

MLB (Oak Park, Ca. USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Blackbirder (Brethren of the Coast) (Hardcover)

As usual, James Nelson delivers. A worthy sequel to The Guardship, The Blackbirder takes the reader on an amazing journey, not only to historical Boston but to the shores of Africa. Nelson's imagery is as sharp and as beautiful as ever, and its impossible to put the book down. If you're a fan of Forester, O'Brien, or of Nelson's other novels, this is a must have.