Everyone knows the legend of Captain Kidd, the most ruthless buccaneer of all time, a story book villain complete with eye patch and peg leg. But the truth is far stranger than the simplistic myth.
William Kidd was actually a respectable Scottish merchant sea captain, secretly employed by a consortium of powerful English lords headed by King William III to track down pirates and recover their spoils. It was a licence to steal from thieves, but Kidd was to face storms, disease and mutiny - and betrayal at every turn.
This remarkable, colourful tale traces Kidd's voyages in the 1690s from the bustling docks of 17th century New York to Whitehall Palace in London; from the ports of the Caribbean to a secret pirate paradise off Madagascar.
During his research, Richard Zacks also stumbled across the story of a long-forgotten rogue from Cornwall named Robert Culliford, a truly ruthless pirate who flew a blood red flag which signified "no mercy" and whose surgeon was named Jon Death.
Kidd's and Culliford's paths were to cross again and again throughout their lives, in an extraordinary unscripted duel across the oceans of the world. One man would hang on the gallows of the London dockside, the other would walk away with the treasure.
Superbly written and impeccably researched, 'The Pirate Hunter' is both a masterpiece of historical detection and a ripping good yarn.
