Desperation Island by Keith A. Hamilton

An extraordinary, tough-as-nails adventure novel, Desperation Island by Keith A. Hamilton is a gritty take on the pirate genre with a contemporary twist – a 21st Century Pirates of the Caribbean, as the subtitle accurately describes. After Ronald Johnson discovers he is a descendant of Francis Drake, he decides to become a pirate and take to the open sea. Renaming himself Ronald Drake, he gathers together a band of comrades, fulfilling his fantasies and his hard-edged ambitions in a series of dangerous adventures, taking cargo from smaller boats before getting on the radar of both law enforcement and the Russian Mafia. With an original point of view that doesn’t flinch from the darker motivations of these antiheroes, or apologize for their bad behavior even as it gets them into trouble, Desperation Island is a fascinating and page-turning read.