Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton

The late Michael Crichton moved out of his usual sphere with this attempt at a swashbuckling historical adventure a la Rafael Sabatini. More comfortable on his usual ground of research based science fiction he has produced a run-of -the-mill, if very competant and acceptable, tale of sea-doggery but it is not up to the very high standard we gratefully came to expect from him. Am I alone in thinking this a sad farewell to such a brilliant and entertaining writer.