‘Blackbirder’ succeeds despite plot confusion

THE BLACKBIRDER by James L. Nelson, William Morrow, 336 pages, $24.

Mainer James L. Nelson is carving out a strong niche for himself as a first-rate author of American sea stories. Where C.S. Forester, Dudley Pope, Alexander Kent and Patrick O’Brian have built solid readership with their exploits of the British Navy in the 1700s and 1800s, Nelson is doing the same for the Colonial times in America.

Nelson, a Harpswell resident with sailing vessel experience, has two series under way. One is the “Revolution at Sea Saga,” now in its fifth book with Capt. Isaac Biddlecomb of the Continental Navy as the main character. His second series, “The Brethren of the Coast,” has reached its second book with “The Blackbirder,” which is just out.

The “Brethren” series is built around ex-pirate Thomas Marlowe who, in this book, is now a successful businessman and plantation owner in Williamsburg, Va., in 1702. Marlowe has built and is readying a ship to take to the seas as a privateer. Privateers are commissioned by a government at war to attack and capture enemy ships, especially merchant ships.

But Marlowe’s plans are wrecked when his heretofore reliable aide, King James, an ex-slave, goes berserk and kills a renegade slaver – a slave ship captain. James escapes in the slave ship, frees all the slaves, and sets sail for piracy and Africa, knowing sadly that he has no other choice.

In this novel, there are three main plot lines – one involving Marlowe’s search for the ex-slave and his pirate ship; a second concerning the struggle of King James to sail back to Africa with a black crew; and the third involving the efforts of Marlowe’s wife to rid the Marlowes of the conniving Frederick Dunmore and his behind-the-back attempts to destroy Marlowe.

Marlowe, instead of receiving a Letter of Marque to go privateering, is charged by the governor with finding King James. He sets forth in his new ship, the Elizabeth Galley, with his learned friend Francis Bickerstaff, but does not tell his eager privateering crew of the assignment.

Meanwhile, King James and his crew find a rich merchant ship and take it over as they sail toward Africa. Nelson takes great pains to develop the character of the ex-slave, who has made himself an outlaw by killing the “Blackbird” captain in a rage. King James was a freed slave, freed by Marlowe, and he is pictured as a regretful man who is manipulated by the leaders of the slave crew even as he knows that his path is an inevitable one.

Marlowe presents an interesting mixture, too. He once was a swashbuckling pirate, but now is a plantation owner who has freed his slaves who now work for him.

And while he is away, Dunmore leads a group of white planters to capture the ex-slaves, but Marlowe’s wife, Elizabeth, flees with the workers.

With Marlowe away, Elizabeth somehow must save her workers and get rid of the dastardly Dunmore. She is aided by an old friend, a smuggler named Billy Bird, and with him sets off for Boston; Dunmore comes from there and there have been rumors about his life there.

While Nelson has a penchant for posing soul-searching dilemmas, he provides plenty of action as each of these three plot lines is alternately depicted. And none of them is easy or straightforward.

Marlowe, for example, has to drive his crew members – who were hired on to go privateering – to overtake King James while spurning the capture of any ships, since he does not have a Letter of Marque to legalize such captures.

King James, nominally in command of the black ship, knows the only reason he appears to be in command is that he is the only one who knows how to handle the ship and navigate it. Once they reach Africa, he will be lucky to stay alive.

And Elizabeth, in Boston, has to learn as much as she can about Dunmore, whose father is a well-known preacher there, and then figure a way to discredit him when she returns to Virginia so she can reclaim her plantation and workers.

The plot concept of the “Blackbirder” is a difficult one, but Nelson handles it with aplomb even as he alternates three viewpoints in the telling. The three plot lines seem a bit disjointed at times and it is hard for the reader to make a quick jump from being inside Marlowe’s head to King James’ and then to Elizabeth’s.

Nelson has a keen eye for description and a nifty hand with dialogue. The contrasts between action and philosophical musings are handled nicely. And, of course, the three plot lines are wrapped up neatly in the climax of the novel.