A review by usbsticky
The Bloody Black Flag: A Spider John Mystery by Steve Goble

4.0

It's been a long time since I read a pirate book and actually this one is not bad. It's simply written, easy to read and follow. At 235 pages I finished it in a couple of days. I thought this book had a lot of potential. I liked the characters, the setting and the swashbuckling. I thought the author did a good job of putting the reader in a pirate ship and the time and technical details were accurately written.

But I didn't really like the story that much. The story really only revolved around one thing, which became clear about 40% into the book and which I thought limited the story. But I liked everything else. I would give this book 3.5 stars which would round up to 4 stars. The way this book is written, there will be a sequel and I would definitely give that sequel a try.

I got this book as a free ARC.

Spoilers: That one thing is this one mysterious object that the Captain possesses. It's supposed to be worth a lot of gold. It's stolen by someone aboard the ship. The course of the story changes when this thing is stolen and it becomes the backdrop of the rest of the book. The story ends after Spider discovers who the thief is but the reveal is done without any suspense. This is much more a pirate book than a "mystery" book.