When Michael Crichton passed away last year they found in his study a complete manuscript which came to be his first post-humous and penultimate publication: Pirate Latitudes. There's another one that is set to be published in 2012 I'm informed (wikipedia... if you trust it). I bought this book a few weeks after he died and only got round to reading it lately.
The book starts out in Port Royale where a privateering expedition, headed by a captain Charles Hunter, is requested to punish the infamous Spanish pirate captain Cazalla and make a profit from the booty. The captain hatches a plan to raid the pirate stronghold on the Island of Matenceros and he picks the best men (and a gender-confused woman) for the job. Thus begins a great adventure.
Perhaps it was the theme of pirates that didn't really appeal to me and caused me to not like this book as much as his other works, but Crichton does a great job of keeping the reader interested and even though it doesn't match to the best of his other novels, it is still quite good. Sometimes the way he words things, descriptions and specific terms seem a little queer and don't fit in with his regular style - I put that down to not having lived long enough to perfect this novel. And the story isn't as thrilling as I'd like, but this is a really good book - I read it to the end and enjoyed it, and in some sections I physically laughed out loud.
Some of Crichtons previous have stories sent me to sleep and I dropped them mid-sentance and others kept me riveted and I've since re-read them, but this one is in the middle and was good enough to keep me reading it through to the end. Thus I recommend it and give it a 3.5/5 rating.
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