Columbia history major also writes nonfiction for the New York Times, Garden & Gun, and the Huffington Post on a range of topics, including national security and piracy. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama.
Thomson applied the “Page 99 Test” to his nonfiction account of the first pirate expedition into the Pacific, Born to Be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune, and reported the following:
This is easy, because page 99 is smack in the middle of the April 23, 1680, clash between Spanish soldiers and the English pirates who are the heroes of Born to Be Hanged.Learn more about the book and author at Keith Thomson's website.
Originally there were 366 of them, banding together in the Caribbean with the intent of being the first buccaneer company to raid the Pacific. On their way to their first major target, Panama City, things went horribly wrong, as things so often do, and, on the morning of April 23, only sixty-eight of them arrived in the Bay of Panama, exhausted from rowing dugout canoes all night through a tropical storm that had waylaid the rest of their company. There were far too few of them to raid the city, even if they were in peak condition. But before they could retreat, they found themselves on the verge of being run down by 260 Spanish soldiers in three warships the size of 747s. Somehow, the pirates got it into their heads that they could defeat the Spaniards.
The resulting battle was arguably the greatest in pirate history, if not all of maritime history, and, not to give anything away, but page 99 is as representative as any in Born to Be Hanged of the Englishmen’s courage and resourcefulness—and insanity.
The Page 69 Test: Once A Spy.
The Page 69 Test: 7 Grams of Lead.
--Marshal Zeringue
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