A novel born of extensive historical research presents a temptation to its author: to shoehorn in every morsel hoovered from the archives, regardless of whether or not it slows down the action. Kim Sherwood’s third doesn’t fall into that trap, but it’s overstuffed in a different way. The extra material here – interpolations, commentary, pastiche – gives an intertextual gloss to what might otherwise come across as a straightforward swashbuckling yarn.
The novel begins when toddler Molly is abducted over the body of her dead mother by the king of the Devon smugglers, Tom West. The ramifications of that night, 26 November 1703, will rumble on for centuries as the story of the orphan and the freebooter passes into legend. Molly, who grows up to become daredevil Orlando, a member of Tom’s crew, believes Grace Tucker was shot by the “Revenue man” who came to arrest Tom that stormy night, and vows to avenge her mother’s death. However, everyone present has a different account, and a different motive for sticking to it. One story is that Grace, Tom’s lover, betrayed the smugglers’ code. Whether vows and codes are just thin justifications for selfish actions is a key theme.
