 Pirates and Privateers
The History of Maritime
Piracy
Cindy Vallar, Editor
& Reviewer
P.O. Box 425,
Keller, TX 76244-0425
Books for Adults ~ Historical
Fiction & Historical Mystery
Chambers of the Sea
By Alan Vazquez
Independently Published, 2021, ISBN 979-8512583876, US
$4.99
The sea
is a place of legends and superstitions, none more
so than with the Mary Celeste. The ship
floats in a place where no other vessel should be
when Captain David Morehouse and his crew first spy
her six miles ahead. The closer they come, the more
they feel wrapped in a shroud of uneasiness, a bad
omen of what lies ahead. John Wright and Oliver
Deveau are sent to to investigate. Neither wishes to
go, but they must heed their captain's order, even
though they find themselves swathed in a dense mist.
Once aboard, there is no one to be found and no
clues as to what occurred. Only a voice that
whispers, "Leave."
The abandonment of the Mary
Celeste is perhaps the best-known sea mystery.
In the winter of 1872, the Dei Gratia comes
upon the derelict. Vazquez takes what is known about
this event and spins a haunting psychological tale.
Once spooked, a domino effect occurs, giving rise to
tricks that the mind plays in order to make sense
out of that which is unfathomable. What works
against this are the formatting and grammatical
errors, poorly worded sentences, misspellings, and
missing letters or punctuation. Several italicized
passages interrupt the story's flow. Although the
tension level could be higher, this is a yarn for
curious readers seeking more than just the facts.
Vazquez includes an epilogue, which reveals what
happens once the ships and crew make port.
Review Copyright ©2014 Cindy Vallar
Marbeck and the Privateers
By John Pilkington
Severn House, 2014, e-book ISBN 978-1-78010-517-8, US
$24.99 / UK £19.99
print ISBN 978-07278-8372-8, US $28.95 / UK £19.99
Horrified, the prisoner watches as three men are
impaled alive under the hot sun in an Algerian
courtyard. He expects his fate to be the same, but
his life is spared if he will betray his country.
If, however, he betrays the Spaniard who demands
this of him, his father will suffer an
excruciating death just as these men have.
Thus begins Martin
Marbeck’s third adventure, in which the
intelligencer* must ferret out those who wish to
sidetrack peace negotiations between the Spanish
and Dutch, who have come to London at King James’s
behest to bring peace between these warring
nations. Some of his countrymen, who still
remember the failed invasion of Spain’s armada,
can’t abide having Spaniards on English soil. Nor
are the privateers happy with James’s desire to be
seen as Rex Pacificus (the peacemaker
king), for they can no longer legally plunder
other ships. Lord Secretary Cecil, Marbeck’s boss,
has no intention of allowing anyone or anything to
disrupt the peace negotiations.
Barely recovered
after someone poisons his food, Marbeck heeds the
call to protect the Spanish ambassador. It is an
odd assignment, since the closest he can get to
the man is the house next door, which just happens
to belong to his employer. Marbeck fears the task
is either a punishment or Cecil’s way of telling
him his services are no longer required, but the
Lord Secretary knows Marbeck too well. When a
nefarious acquaintance named Simon Jewkes visits
the ambassador, who is then shot at, Marbeck’s
curiosity is piqued. Instead of following through
with his assignment, he tries to track down
Jewkes, a difficult task that necessitates
discarding his disguise as Cecil’s secretary to
pursue the man. Then Jewkes’s name is linked with
that of the mysterious Sea Locusts. Delving into
who or what they are and trying to connect these
disparate threads leads Marbeck down a perilous
path that may cost him his life.
Even if you’ve not
read the previous titles in this series, you will
have little trouble following the story.
Pilkington does a wonderful job recreating early
17th-century England, and the riveting prologue
grabs your attention. Unfortunately, that tension
dissipates with the opening chapters of the tale;
once Marbeck forsakes his secretarial role and
leaves London, the pace quickens and the
permeating evil draws you deeper and deeper into
the muck and mire until you can’t escape. Marbeck
and the Privateers is similar to a
provocative and intriguing jigsaw puzzle set in a
time when spies had only their instincts and
knowledge to ferret out the truth. If you seek
intellectual mysteries, rather than those rife
with gadgets and gizmos, this third book in the
Marbeck series definitely tests your deductive
skills.
*Intelligencer
is an archaic term from the 1500s, which the
Oxford English Dictionary defines as
“a person who conveys intelligence or
information; specifically an informer; a
spy, a secret agent.”
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