The Novel "Pirate Alley" has Its Brief Moments of Interest

The novel "Pirate Alley" is a graphic escapade of vicious rape, insane greed and certainly not for the faint of heart.

Returning hero’s spawned in writer Stephen Coonts mind, Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini are the brains in thwarting depraved pirates who hi-jack a cruise ship with more than 800 passengers. The main characters Carmellini and Grafton are mere side notes to in the story which adds to the novel many flaws.

The cruise ship, Sultan of the Sea is sailing on the narrow gulf of Suei and the Gulf of Aden, perhaps the busiest highway for ships infested with pirates known a "Pirate Alley."

The very beginning of the books captures the attention span in moments, with a story line that has nothing to do with the main plot. I imagine Coonts was illustrating Carmellini’s ability to fight crime with wits and brawn.

The main villains Sheikh Ragnar and his partner in crime Mustafa al-Said epitomize evil the way Wall Street defines financial atrocity. Ragnar and Said are characters anyone who is not sadistic would love to hate. The two inhuman men lead the charge in the brutal raping to death of women and senseless torture and killing of other innocents people.

"Pirate Alley" is a tale about a cruise ship seized by Ragnar, Said and their savagely cruel gang of Somalia pirates with an insane goal to acquire the almighty dollar. The ships passengers are held ransom for 200 million American dollars.

The author Coonts said Somalia is without government with raging pirates swarming along the coast with armed hungry men eager to loot, pillage and rape anybody. It's like Europe in the Dark Ages or Wall Street.

I had mixed feelings about "Pirate Alley." On one had it had the gripping elements any story should have, intriguing characters and the arousal of the reader’s curiosity as to what will happen next.

Although there are surprises in the book, the story festers into futility in the middle and is soon muddled into a boring read. Without revealing too much of the story, the parts I did like were educational and pleasing to me. Commanding officer of the USS Richard Ward, Millicent C. Fjestand known as 'the old woman' and called big momma behind her back is a fun character with a dilly of weapon on her ship. The weapon is Mark 45 mod four; it fires shells five inches in diameter weighing 70 pounds each with a muzzle velocity of 2,650 feet per second. Mark 45's efficient range is 20 miles.

One of the rape victims, Nora Needling gets her revenge by bounding her rapist so tight with rope his hands turn white from lack of circulation. She then removes a certain part of his man hood with a kitchen knife and leaves him bound and bleeding to a slow death.

A violent appetizing beginning to "Pirate Alley" followed by a lackadaisical middle and ending nets the novel an average read.