ILL WINDS BLOWING ACROSS A TROUBLED SEA

A famous pirate captain tangles with the Dutch East India Company in this final volume of a swashbuckling adventure trilogy.

It’s been a year since the legendary Irish pirate Capt. Bloody Mary was swept from the deck of her ship, Phantom, during a freak storm off Florida. Since then, her young protégé, Elizabeth Cortés, has taken her place as the head of Mary’s crew. After failing to bring in the sort of haul Mary usually managed, Elizabeth outfits the crew members with a new flagship—the Ghostrunner—and enlists them in an emerging Dutch venture in the Far East. Sailing for “the Company” means transporting spices instead of stealing gold, but the work turns out to be just as dangerous. Elizabeth makes the mistake of trusting a Macau sea lord named Féng Wú and soon finds her small fleet decimated by Chinese pirates and their Portuguese allies. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Mary returns from the dead. Pulled from the sea by Tequesta fishermen, she’s betrayed by sailors, sold into slavery, rescued by the Cimarrons of Panama, and eventually makes her way back to Ireland. When she hears of Elizabeth’s deal with the Company, she immediately strikes out to find her ships and her sailors—or whatever is left of them. McMillin’s prose—which alternates in perspective between Elizabeth and Mary—is muscular and direct. Here, Mary finds herself arrested and imprisoned immediately upon her arrival in Amsterdam: “My predicament appeared bleak. But I did not panic. I refused to give my captors the satisfaction. The Dutch left me tied to the chair for the night within reach of a privy bucket, a loaf of bread and a jug of water. I whittled away the hours deep in thought, plotting my escape.” The novel is paced like an adventure movie, filled with sea battles, colorful bit players, and double crosses, and readers will feel as though they have circumnavigated the globe several times by the end of it. There isn’t much dimension to these characters or their schemes, but fans of the golden age of Piracy will appreciate the verve with which McMillin replicates its milieu.

A rousing, sprawling yarn about two indefatigable pirate women.