33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The "Hunter" Becomes the Hunted, July 12, 2002
Richard Zacks's "The Pirate Hunter" is a lively adventure tale with the kind of twists and turns that prove the old adage that truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. Along the way, he sets the record straight and rehabilitates the reputation of Captain William Kidd, the late 17th Century privateer and gentlemen who set out to hunt pirates with noble backing and ended up branded as one. Kidd is a tragic hero of the first order. Honorable (at least, by the standards of the time), resolute and with an unshakeable faith in his own abilities, he was laid low by an incredible run of double crosses and sheer bad luck. Particularly touching were his devotion to his wife and his strong sense of duty, neither of which were ultimately enough to save him.
The book's other main character is the despicable Robert Culliford, an actual pirate who betrayed Kidd twice and whose fate was tied closely to the Captain. Culliford's villany stands in sharp contrast to Kidd, giving the story a strong counterpoint.
Along the way Zacks, who demonstrates himself to be a meticulous researcher, paints a vivid portrait of the lives of sailors and pirates during the period. Zacks's authentic descriptions of what it was like to be a real life pirate bears little resemblence to the modern literary and cinematic stereotypes. His prose is vivid and highly readable, and the book feels more like a novel than a work of history as a result. My only quibble is the Zacks occasionally gets a little TOO bogged down in the details, as evidenced by the narrative's 400 plus pages.
Nevertheless, overall "The Pirate Hunter" is an excellent read for those who enjoy nautical history tales.
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
No Kidding: great bio, June 8, 2002
This book is a surprising treasure that brings to life more than just the shocking life of Captain Kidd. The biography also takes an up close look at the late seventeenth century on the high seas and in the major harbor towns. Digging into the documentation, author Richard Zacks contends that Captain William Kidd was not a cutthroat killing pirate; but instead he was a family man renowned as a New York sea captain. Thus, merchants and politicians like the governor of the New York colony hired Kidd to chase down pirates like Robert Culliford to reclaim the booty they stole. THE PIRATE HUNTER: THE TRUE STORY OF CAPTAIN KIDD is a fabulous historical biography that never slows down and worth reading for as much as learning the real record as for how well Mr. Zacks tells a nonfiction adventure tale.
Harriet Klausner
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41 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Notorious Pirate Who Wasn't, May 30, 2002
Mention the name of Captain Kidd, and you can't help thinking of buried treasure, bloodthirsty tales of plunder, and general maritime mayhem. There was a real Captain Kidd, and he did sail among the pirates, but we all have the wrong idea about him, according to Richard Zacks, whose _The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd_ (Theia / Hyperion) sets the record straight. William Kidd was a master mariner who lived in New York, on Wall Street, no less, at the end of the seventeenth century. He had a wife and daughter. "He was no career cutthroat, no cartoon Blackbeard, terrifying his prey by putting flaming matches in his hair." Kidd was a respectable sea captain, who had enormously bad luck in his endeavors to hunt pirates for profit.
Kidd was no pirate, but a privateer, recruited by powerful Lords and merchants to rob from the pirates that had robbed from the merchants. He had a secret commission from King William III himself, who privately took a ten percent share of any profits that Kidd might come up with. Kidd sailed on _Adventure Galley_, a three-master built in England and launched in 1696 specifically for Kidd's mission, with a crew of 150. Many of the crew had been pirates themselves, and Kidd was putting himself in an uncomfortable management position. He had nothing but bad luck in finding pirates to rob, but even before he did so, rumors of his being a pirate himself had sprung up. After his crew mutinied, he tried to return to his home in New York, but discovered to his surprise that he was the most wanted man in America. He sneaked back towards New York, and in another unpiratical act, sought the help of his lawyer. He made overtures to Lord Bellomont, his prime backer, but the gouty and treacherous Bellomont, having learned of the extent and whereabouts of the haul Kidd had brought back, put him into jail. Kidd was shipped in chains to England. The corruption involved in his jail term and his trial are well detailed here.
Zacks has dug into account books, diaries, and forgotten, centuries-old governmental documents to bring out the truth about Kidd, but this is far from a dusty academic account. Zacks has fun telling us about how pirates really lived, how politics was conducted, the difficulties of shipboard life, and how different the times were from our own. For example, he writes of a messenger: "As he reached the East River, the Manhattan skyline loomed: a windmill and two church steeples towering over a seaside row of three-story gable roofs." Kidd's was a wild and eventful life, even if it wasn't the life of a pirate. My guess is that Zacks's book will never overcome the centuries of folklore that have accumulated around Kidd's story, but the true story is still a rousing treasure.
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