Pirates of Pensacola

This is a great movie...I mean book. The way Mr. Thomson gave details, it was like "reading" a movie. A modern day book that is clean and very funny. But keep in mind, it is a pirate book. There is blood and death. Don't know how Mr. Thomson combined death and funny, but he managed to do just that.

This is as funny a novel as I've ever read. It's laugh-out-loud funny, your wife and kids staring at you as you chortle, wondering what's wrong with you funny. This is a funny, funny book. It reads sort of like a cross between Robert Louis Stevenson and Douglas Adams. The story, about the most boring guy in the world discovering that he's really the scion of a family of famous buccaneers and going off on an adventure to capture the gold and discover his true inner pirate is amazing. The chase through the bordello, the explosive tavern brawl, and the pirate funeral are all top notch. Of course, there's the big showdown at the end between the novice pirate and his family's centuries old nemesis and it's no surprise who wins - but how he does is perfect. Keith Thomson has written a gem. Here's hopign they'll make it into a movie, because it would be great!

Pirates of Pensacola is a wonderful fusion of frenetic action and social satire. I found myself laughing out loud as I followed the Cooke's on their rollercoaster ride. Thomson's gift is the ability to draw the reader into his world of contemporary piracy while at the same time winking at the absurdity of that world. Somewhere between the tantalizing historical exposition and the cannon-firing bunglers of the modern day there is a line between reality and fantasy. Thomson's craftsmanship is to hide that line so effectively that we give up and ignore it. I particularly loved the melange of old traditions and tools with modern technology. Pirates with rusty cutlasses and fax machines are an idea too amusing to miss. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who sometimes finds the day-to-day grind of the landlubber a bit pedestrian.

"Pirates of Pensacola" by Keith Thomson is a classic, hilarious pirate story set in the present day. It is also a throwback to the golden era of adventure novels--think Carl Hiaasen collarborating with Jules Verne. The hero is Morgan Baker, a Florida man in his mid-thirties whose existence consists of his dull accounting job, dinner alone every night at World of Tacos, and drinking by himself at a dive bar by the docks that looks like the inside of a tugboat in a way that is "neither intentional or in any way charming." Morgan has one unique skill though: he can throw darts like lightning bolts. He has pirate in his blood; he's just unaware of it. One day Morgan's crusty, salty father Isaac shows up in Florida, freshly released from 20 years in jail. Father and son have long been estranged. Isaac claims that before being imprisoned (for the jewel heist in the prologue), he was a pirate in the Caribbean. Moreover, he and Morgan are part of a long, storied line of pirates, the Cookes. Also, he has gold worth $45 million buried on a tiny Caribbean island. He wants to take Morgan's company yacht to go get it. Morgan thinks the old man is nuts. Morgan wakes up in the Caribbean a day later, having been drugged by Isaac. He quickly learns that Isaac was telling the truth about piracy's continued existence there, and that they are locked in a fierce competition with the Cookes' piratic arch-rivals of several centuries, the Hoods, for the gold. Morgan decides even a chance at his share of it would be better than returning to his lonely life in Florida. Then the race is on, and it's dazzling. As a reader, you are heaved headlong into a secret world of modern-day pirates that are very much like their charismatic forebears. The fighting that ensues--pitched cannon battles at sea, daggers, flying fists and explosions in pirate bars, and swords clanging everywhere--is as clever and exciting as anything you've seen in a movie theater. The attention to maritime history and detail, on a level of Patrick O'Brian, is a bonus. The characters are richly drawn, funny, and unforgettable. Ultimately, "Pirates of Pensacola" is a moving story of father and son who are complete opposites finding common ground, bonding there, and joining forces to become great heroes. As with the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, I hope there is a sequel.

I liked this book a lot. If you are a pirate afficionado you will love it! But even if you aren't a pirate lover you will love this tale, told in a light funny style. I liken this story to the "Perils of Pauline" as it concentrates on the trials and tribulations of a father/son duo as they attempt to find a buried treasure. But it is not just the story of the quest for the gold but the quest of a son and father to reconnect after many years apart. But don't make the mistake to think this is a story with mawkish sentimentality. The writer writes with a slightly ironic view of life which seems quite natural to today's comtempary reader. There is lots of sly humor in this tale and numerous laugh out loud scenes. Each person will have their own favorites. Interesting to note that there is not a lot of profuse prose to this tale, but despite that one is able to have a clear picture of the main actors in this story. Takes talent to do that. This book is good enough that I will probably read it again. I liken it to seeing a movie you really like. You like it the first time but the seond time around you pick up further gems you missed on the first go round. I highly recommend this book. And I hope the author has another one in the works soon.