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. 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 "Unusually detailed and nuanced." -- --Publishers Weekly James L. Nelson has served as a seaman, rigger, boatswain, and officer on a number of sailing vessels. He is the author of By Force of Arms, The Maddest Idea, The Continental Risque, Lords of the Ocean, and All the Brave Fellows -- the five books of his Revolution at Sea Saga. -- as well as The Guardship: Book One of the Brethren of the Coast. He lives with his wife and children in Harpswell, Maine. The Blackbirder By James L. Nelson William Morrow & Company Copyright ©2001 James L. Nelson All right reserved. ISBN: 9780380804535 Chapter One The Church was all heat and white sunlight, dust and the smell of dry grass and manure pushing in through flung open doors. Flies swirling, lighting, black specks on white painted pews. Sunday. June 14, the Year of Our Lord 1702. In the pulpit the preacher droned, on and on. Marlowe shifted, felt the sweat running under his heavy coat and waistcoat and shirt. Realized he had had no thought for...how long? No thought, just consciousness. Like an animal. The preacher waved his arms, entreated God. The air was close, oppressively hot. The church was nearly twenty years old, built when the now-burgeoning Williamsburg was still a backwater called the Middle Plantation. People crammed in like hands of tobacco prized into a cask. A blessing in winter, a misery in summer. Marlowe looked at his shoes, then over at Elizabeth's legs, the outline of her thighs just discernible through layer upon layer upon layer of silk and taffeta. She had to be even hotter than he was. But she would remain proper, because she needed to feel proper after her many years of secret impropriety. Propriety was why he was there in the first place, in his own pew. Not in front of the communion table; those pews had been sold long before to the first families of Virginia. Their pew was behind the vestry, which was still perfectly respectable. The important thing was that everyone, today's newcomers and yesterday's, knew they could afford a pew in front of the communion table, were one available. Marlowe had purchased the pew -- at no little cost -- because Elizabeth did not wish to jeopardize their place in Virginia society. She did not wish to risk losing this new life they had carved for themselves in this new land. They had position now in tidewater society, and people with position spent Sundays in their own pews. As a merchant seaman, Marlowe had had Sundays off. He'd had no duty, save standing watch, unless the ship was run by some petty tyrant who could countenance no idleness among those to whom he paid wages. What had it meant when he was on the account, among the Brethren of the Coast? Nothing. As often as not they hadn't any notion of what day of the week it was. It did not matter to the lawless and the godless, whose hours called them only to slothfulness and debauchery. Marlowe realized his legs were cramped. He stretched them out full length, flexed the muscles, savored the relief. Stole a glance at his friend Francis Bickerstaff, seated on his other side. He was dressed in conservative, unadorned clothes. He held a Bible in his lap, sat rigid, his eyes i