Sometimes I’m in the mood for a good, old-fashioned,
swashbuckling historical adventure novel. THE PIRATE AND THE LADY by Leslie Turner
White, published as a paperback original by Ace Books in 1961, seemed like it
might be just what I was looking for. That’s my copy in the scan. The cover is
by an artist named Chuck Smith, whose work I’m not familiar with.
The book opens in Cornwall, where the protagonist, a ship’s captain known as
Black Anthony Bartholomew, works for the local magistrate, who also happens to
be the kingpin of the smuggling ring that’s operating in the area. Tony is also
the lover of the magistrate’s insatiable young wife, and that’s what ultimately
leads to him being charged unjustly with murder and forced to flee to the
colonies. During that voyage, he meets and falls in love with the daughter of
an English nobleman who’s being sent to the Caribbean to put a stop to the
piracy plaguing the area. The nobleman’s plan includes issuing letters of
marque to British sailors so they can hunt down the French and Spanish pirates.
This seems like a perfect job for Tony.
Unfortunately, he gets sidetracked to a plantation in Virginia owned by the
brother of his former lover back in England. She’s there, too, and expects that
she and Tony will take up right where they left off. Tony wants to get to the
Caribbean, though, and be reunited with the fair Kathleen, and this leads to no
end of trouble.
All this set-up actually takes up too much space in the book, but once Tony
finally makes it to the Spanish Main, there’s buccaneering action a-plenty.
Capture, escape, sea battles, daring plans, swordfights, even a great sidekick
named Half-Arsed Jones. White, whose writing career started in the pulps, seems
torn between spinning a breakneck yarn and writing a more sedate, respectable
historical novel, albeit one with some spicy plot twists. It’s a combination
that works more often than it doesn’t, thankfully.
Although THE PIRATE AND THE LADY looks almost like a romance, there’s actually
not much domestic drama in it, mostly in the opening and then very late in the
book. I enjoyed this novel quite a bit. It’s short, colorful, and reads
quickly. The author, as Leslie T. White, wrote quite a few detective and
adventure stories for the pulps before becoming a bestselling novelist as
Leslie Turner White. The line “First Book Publication” on the cover of this one
might be an indication that it’s an expanded serial or novella from the pulps,
but if that’s the case, I couldn’t pin down the source. I think it’s just as
likely that White wrote it as an original and then maybe sold it to Ace when it
failed to sell to a hardback publisher. Either way, it’s a good yarn and well
worth reading if you enjoy vintage historical adventures.
