Tinniswood's absorbing book is packed with bad characters, big fights and breathless chases

Tinniswood narrates this story with brio and bravura, displaying an excellent eye for the theatrical detail and juicy episode

Adrian Tinniswood is a masterly writer of history with a gift for slamming his readers into the thick of the action

This rollicking book unpicks a confusion of names, dates and places to produce a fascinating history of seabourne conflict.

This exciting book proves that such obscurity is both surprising and undeserved

A thrilling account

Fascinating book

Skilfully evokes the dread that corsairs aroused

Tinniswood's artful blend of narrative and analysis brings the pirates' society to life. Beneath the vivid surface of this book there lie, sometimes obscured by the vividness, the careful investigation and astute judgement of one of the most incisive of our popular historians.

North African pirates were the scourge of the 17th century, and plundered as far as Cornwall. Tinniswood tells their story with verve

The author's style is an absolute joy and his stories of attacks, based in eyewitness accounts, make rather more thrilling than many fictional thrillers are... He also proves an even-handed judge. While there's no attempt to whitewash the privateers here, there are explanations of what caused men to turn their hand to conquering the seas.

This well-researched history of piracy presents brutal seafaring extortionists instead of eye-patched rascals.

Tinniswood unearths colourful characters and historical oddities while pointing out that the West's inability to deal with Somali pirates show how little we've learned in 400 years

Meticulously researched history of unrestrained murder, robbery and kidnapping on the high seas... This is a brisk, entertaining story, with royal proclamations, letters, maps and lavishness illuminating Tinniswood's vivid tales.

[He] has unearthed many colourful characters and historical oddities and uses eyewitness accounts to weave a fascinating tale