In 1981, Crichton said he was working on a pirate story, and he mentioned a research trip to Jamaica in 1982 in his non-fiction book Travels (1988).Īccording to Jonathan Burnham, a publisher of a HarperCollins imprint, Pirate Latitudes had been written concurrently with Crichton's then most recent novel, Next (2006).Īlan Cheuse said, in review for NPR Books: 'It builds on an actual event in maritime records' when pirates out of the Caribbean port of Port Royal attacked a fortress on a Spanish island in order to plunder – I like that word, and it's what pirates do, they plunder – a ship filled with new world treasure.' Īccording to Marla Warren, there is evidence that Crichton had been working on Pirate Latitudes at least since the 1970s to substantiate her position, she quotes a statement by Patrick McGilligan in the March 1979 issue of American Film that Crichton was aiming 'to complete a long-standing book project about Caribbean pirates in the seventeenth century.'. The story stars the fictional privateer Captain Charles Hunter who, hired by Jamaica's governor Sir James Almont, plots to raid a Spanish galleon for its treasure.Ĭrichton's assistant discovered the manuscript on one of Crichton's computers after his death in 2008, along with an unfinished novel, Micro (2011). HarperCollins published the book posthumously on November 26, 2009.

Pirate Latitudes is an action adventure novel by Michael Crichton, the sixteenth novel to be published under his own name and first to be published after his death, concerning 17th-century piracy in the Caribbean.

Crichton pirate latitudes