CAPTAIN KIDD

Chernow's Alexander Hamilton meets The Wager, an adventure tale that will change how readers view the legendary sea captain and the whole Golden Age of Piracy, and the first biography of a famous "pirate" ever written by a direct descendant.

Captain William Kidd stands as one of the most notorious "pirate" outlaws ever, but his notorious legend is tainted by a bed of lies. Captain Kidd has captivated imaginations for over three hundred years and inspired many stories about pirates, but was he really a criminal? Just how many ships did he plunder, how many men did he force to walk the plank, and how many throats did he slit? Or is the truth more inconvenient: that he was a buccaneer's worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians? In CAPTAIN KIDD, his ninth-great-grandson, writer Samuel Marquis, reveals the real story. With honors far more esteemed than the menacing Blackbeard or any other sea rover at the turn of the seventeenth century, how can Kidd be considered both gentleman and pirate, both hero and villain? Marquis' biography clears the foggy haze of five centuries of legend and British propaganda to illuminate the seafaring adventurer and civic leader. He scrupulously recreates Kidd's perilous world of explosive naval warfare, the daring integrity he exemplified as a pirate hunter, and the political scandal that entangled Kidd in British-American history, rocking the New World and the Old and threatening England's valuable trade with India. Samuel Marquis is the ninth-great-grandson of William Kidd, and the award-winning author of twelve American history, historical-fiction, and suspense books. His book Blackbeard is a Kirkus Reviews Book of the Year Award winner and the top selling Blackbeard book on Amazon for the past five years. He is regularly consulted as an expert in American history by media outlets such as the History Channel.