RAPTOR'S REVENGE

This blend of nautical fiction, swashbuckling adventure, and romance set in Elizabethan England follows a heroic young man on a quest to kill the culprit who murdered his family.

Jamey Fallon’s childhood growing up on a sprawling English farm with his siblings and Irish parents is idyllic. His mother and father are considered heroes after their exploits saving King Henry VIII’s and Queen Elizabeth I’s lives. But Jamey’s existence is turned upside down when he returns from goatherding to find his entire family dead, brutally butchered. The only clue the 14-year-old has to go on is a finger wearing a ring with a strange symbol on it found inside his father’s mouth. After burying his family, Jamey sets out to find the nine-fingered man who destroyed his life. His hunt begins inauspiciously when, after meeting the beautiful daughter of an English lord, he is kidnapped and thrown aboard a ship. Forced into service, Jamey spends many seasons aboard the ship, learning to be a competent sailor. When he eventually gets his own ship—the Raptor—he and his best friend, Patch (nicknamed because of the black leather piece covering one of his eyes), become legendary privateers. They sail the Caribbean and terrorize Spanish ships in search of the mysterious murderer. Relentless pacing, competent character development, and an impressively intricate storyline make Malloy’s tale a bracing, readable adventure. The one criticism concerns the unnecessarily graphic—and frankly bizarre—sex scenes throughout, which, considering the potential audience, feel strangely out of place. In one scene, for example, a love interest masturbates for Jamey with a banana. In another episode, a female character with pet panthers experiences orgasms as a big cat’s tail repeatedly touches her as she lies naked. Patrick O’Brian meets E.L. James.

An undeniably thrilling but uneven page-turner about a brave privateer seeking vengeance.