Written in 1934, Shay based his work of the life of famed pirate Mary Read on the available histories. In this delightful novel she is depicted as a fetching pirate wench who roams the Romantic Carribees, despoiling shipping and taking lovers. Read lived disguised as a boy by her mother, from an early age, as an adult she proved herself in the military, and aboard ships. When a West Indies bound ship that she was on was taken by pirates, she was forced her to join them. In 1720 she joined pirate John "Calico Jack" Rackham and his companion, the female pirate Anne Bonny. The rest as they say, is history.