Buccaneer

by Dudley Pope Book 1 in the Ned Yorke series.

First published 1981

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4.1(173)

Set in 1655 as England's Western Design seizes Jamaica from Spain, Buccaneer introduces Royalist planter Ned Yorke in a Caribbean already divided by imperial rivalry. Driven from Barbados and hunted by enemies on land and sea, Yorke takes his ship and loyal crew into waters where Spanish authority is formidable, English power is still insecure and the line between private war and piracy is deliberately blurred.

The capture of Jamaica changes the balance of the region but does not bring peace. Yorke is drawn toward the Brethren of the Coast and the violent opportunities of buccaneering, where seamanship, cannon fire and improvised alliances matter more than legal niceties. Pope builds the adventure from the practical realities of seventeenth-century sailing and colonial warfare, while Yorke's Royalist loyalties give the story a political tension that reaches back to the English Civil War.