George MacDonald Fraser was renowned for his legendary Flashman series
featuring the incorrigible knave Harry Flashman, a soldier in the
British army. After Fraser's death, his children discovered an
unpublished first novel locked away in his study: Captain in Calico.
In this lively stand-alone, Fraser introduces the real-life antihero
Captain John Rackham. Called Calico Jack, he was the first to fly the
skull and crossbones on a black flag, an illustrious eighteenth-century
pirate who marauded the perilous Caribbean seas.
One tranquil evening in the Bahamas, Calico Jack, wanted on counts of
piracy, makes a surprise appearance at the governor's residence and asks
for a pardon for his men. When Jack last set sail from the Bahamas two
years prior, he left behind a beautiful fiancee he hopes to win back. A
deal is brokered, but what the governor does not reveal is that while
Jack was off looting the Spaniards, his beloved has become betrothed to
a new man--the governor himself. Jack discovers he has been deceived
and, in a fury, publicly threatens the governor, then locks swords with
a notorious Frenchman outside a pub. All seems lost until a buxom
Irishwoman, Anne Bonney, comes to his rescue and sets about planning one
of the most audacious lootings the Caribbean has ever seen.
