MAD MORGAN

Once again, the prolific Newcomb (coauthor: The Ghosts of Elkhorn, 1982, etc.) rounds up black-hearted villains, lionhearted heroes, and bosomy beauties for his 30-plus action-adventure tale.

It’s 1665, and young Henry Morgan is enslaved in Cuba, wicked Spaniards having carted him off, a mere child, from his native Wales. But he’s now 19, and someone certainly should have known better than to guard only lightly this future scourge of Spanish shipping—or to guard him heavily, for that matter, since it’s clear from the get-go that Henry is the stuff of superheroes, seldom to be fettered by ordinary restraints. So escape he does—in a manner sort of sluffed over by the author—in the process killing some Spaniards, stealing their ship, freeing a passel of pirates, then setting off with them as his unswervingly loyal crew. In due time he becomes “El Tigre de Caribe,” feared up and down the Caribbean—with certain notable exceptions, such as the lovely if tomboyish Nell Jolly, daughter of Morgan’s éminence gris. “Toto” (the Tiger’s pet name for her) adores him. To her considerable dismay, however, she discovers she’s not the only one. The aristocratic Elena Maria de Saucedo—she of the “perfect breasts,” “raven black” hair, “lustrous green eyes,” and “come-hither smile”—is also smitten. Highborn she may be, but trustworthy she’s not, as Henry discovers to his cost when she betrays him to the Dons. They throw him into their slammer, though not for long, of course. Before one can say “brethren of the blood,” he’s freebooting again—sacking Panama City, getting rich, undoing his enemies, marrying his sweetie, and making full sail back to Britain to become a knight of the realm.

Flagrant overwriting, derivative plotting: a swashbuckler indeed.