DNF at 1%. The prologue was dry and the writing and execution is poor. The author injects details into the story that should be woven in better but is just plopped in between action, which hurts the pacing.

This was a bit darker and grittier than I was expecting, but it’s still a spirited high seas adventure.

I tend to prefer my pirate/privateer or pirate-like characters in fiction to be involved in lighter, more swashbuckling plots, so this wasn’t quite what I hoped it would be. But it makes sense given the setting and timing.

I liked the women at the center of the novel and that helped balance out some lackluster feelings toward the tone and plot. I also enjoyed the setting, which was well-rendered and an unusual locale for a book set in this time period.

My biggest problem with this book was horrific torture, slavery and murder in a comic plot. The hero is scarred by a homosexual gang rape, which he tries to expiate by a shooting innocents in a hotel bar with a machine gun--incidentally wrecking the kidnapping scheme of his partners in the process. There is no hint of censure by the author or remorse of the hero. This kind of thing, and worse, happens every few pages.

Extreme sexual abuse, torture and wanton murder is described in pornographic detail, but there is little other description in the rest of the book. There are long passages complaining about the horrors of poverty, racism, dictators, slavery and criminal gangs; but the heroes spray automatic weapons and throw bombs with no thought of bystanders; and not to fight any of the evils they tiresomely gripe about, but to steal money.

The plot is simple. A Chicago racetrack owner hit a fortune in gold and recorded the location in a series of clues laced with booby traps. The heroes want the gold, so do other people who alternately try to kill the heroes, and save them to follow them and steal the gold. There's no rationality, the author just switches back and forth to keep the plot moving. There's also no reason why the racetrack owner would--or could--construct such an elaborate "National Treasury" type scheme. The chase goes on far too long, and is further padded with flashbacks and ruminations.

The heroes make no more sense. An Irish revolutionary who thinks she's the reincarnation of an 18th century pirate, a Caribbean revolutionary who thinks she's a Santeria demon, a Chicago contractor who runs a hockey team for Down's syndrome kids and other improbable characters who talk in annoyingly broad comic caricatures of themselves. It might work in a screwball comedy, but it wrecks the taut suspense necessary for a good thriller. Moreover the heroes spend far more time and money on their quest--not to mention expose themselves to extraordinary hardship, torture and danger--than the gold could possibly be worth. The reader loses interest in the quest early in the book, and only hopes to be spared gratuitous violence.

If you left out the horrifying sexual degradation, torture, mass murder and slavery--or at least the constant moralizing by the heroes about it while committing heinous crimes of their own--this would be a badly plotted and paced thriller with some inventive color. So if you don't mind the bad stuff, you might find this an okay book. I didn't.

A rollicking tale of breed, love, friendship and loyalty, this is a lively mystery with interesting characters and solid plotting.

This book promised adventure and it definitely delivered. Right from the get go, you are lured into the story with mischievous business and sneaky people. Bill Owens is just trying to live a good life. He coaches a hockey team for kids with downs syndrome and builds mausoleums at a cemetery. But his past catches up with him and you begin to see things unravel around him rather quickly.

After that, the action doesn't stop until the end, leaving the reader in a whirlwind of chaos and yet peaceful at the resolution.

What I admired about this book was the ability to capture so much history and folklore into the clues of this treasure map. It was filled with riddles and twists that you just couldn't guess as a reader. Charlie Newton had to be very organized to pull this off as well as he did. Each clue built on top of the last one and left me thinking that the characters couldn't possibly handle anything more.

I struggled with the amount of characters in some parts. I got a little confused at who everybody was but this is not because of Charlie Newton's writing but rather my own reading of it. He was able to make all of these characters deeply impactful to the outcome and drive of the plot, even if they only lasted for a couple of pages.

If you want an adventure, I would highly recommend picking up this book and giving it a chance. It will take you from Chicago to the Caribbean, and all over the islands, bays, and hidden gems that can be found in Central America.

This book would have made a good film noir - the writng is very descriptive, yet hard to read and the narrative is even harder to follow.
There are so many characters and the chapters keep skipping forward and back between different timelnes and different locations that it had me totally confused most of the time.
Some horrible things happen in Haiti to people involved with findng a treasure taken from a Haitian bank around World War I. In fact, everyone seems intent on killing each other over this.

An interesting aspect of ths book was that the hunters who were closet to this treasure were 3 female pirates - I wish the story had been more about them than the narrator.
It also had some rather sexist writing about topless women throughout the book which made it lose a little credibility to me.

This is a "fabulous thriller" ! I loved this book. The mark of a great thriller is that it keeps the reader engaged and this book does that to conclusion. What a thrilling fun read this is.
Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the opportunity. My review opinion is my own. Review to be cross posted.
This is a thriller in its own top category. .The action is non stop. The thrills are palpable. The charcters are richly drawn to the plot and all add excitement . The atmospheric setting of Haiti is vividly drawn for the reader. The author captures each nuance of the culture, people and food amid thrilling escapades.

I love the way the author winds the story through each charcter amid the action . This is a very talented author that I look forward to reading again and again. Every aspect of this book was enjoyable.

This is one of those blurbs that caught my eye. I've read my share of privateer, buccaneer, rastamon type novels before.

There is the usual cadre of beautiful but dangerous women, all with a deadly history and somewhat shadowy history of CIA activities, as is the protagonist. The treasure is an old one, tied to an Al Capone legend. The protagonist, Bill Owens, owes money--lots of it.

The POV tends to bounce from Owens and friends, 1986 to current. From the beginning, it was obvious this was going to be a dark, gritty, crime noir reminiscent of some of the old radio shows. I've read plenty of books that bounced timelines before and don't generally have a problem with them, but for some reason, these confused me.

The plot is a deep-dive into the murky and treacherous world of the Caribbean underbelly, particularly Haiti. They are also facing a seasonal hurricane. The treasure hunt begins with the discovery of a clue to the treasure's location, but it is always written in obscure description. I did enjoy references to the different Caribbean islands. What I didn't enjoy were the graphic descriptions of torture and mutilation.

The characters, including the antagonist, are not fully developed and I lost sense of them more than once as the women blended into one and the narrative progressed from one clue to the next, each one resulting in a situation worse than the one before. Seems the clues weren't ever going to lead to the treasure. Difficult for me to become engaged with the savagery and no character with which I could invest. The conclusion remains dark and serves up the themes of loss, murder, gambling, rebellions, and inhumanity.

I was given this digital download by publisher and NetGalley and appreciated the opportunity to read and review. My first experience with the author. There will be readers who find it a fast-paced adventure thriller but it just didn't work for me. 2.5/5 rounded up

OMG! What an awesome amazing rollercoaster of a book. This is a must read. Now! Unputdownable. Happy reading!

So this cover and the blurb ara amazing, but this book? I’ve been struggling with it for weeks.i pick it up, read a chapter, but can’t wait for it to be over and put it down again for a couple of days. Usually I am able to get through it, but I struggled and struggled with this one.

Bill is send on assignment to find Susie, who might or might not have survived a shipwreck. This not only sets him to find her, but also a lost treasure worth millions. He gets into a partnership with Susie, Anne and Siri, all trying to find this treasure and all very head strong. There’s are a lot of clues and cryptic messages in this book. I think only someone with knowledge of boating and the Caribbean will fully enjoy this for what it is. Head strong women and a guy, screams Charlie’s Angels to me, while that might not have always been great, I liked it much better than this book.
The story and the premise are rather good, but all the too cryptic messages and insider details of the Caribbean were a bit too much for me. Instead of this book feeling like and escape from reality, it felt like I needed to escape from this book.

Not what I expected, unfortunately. More of a hardboiled crime thriller than an adventure novel, and one that's (a) light on detail, (b) weak in characterization, and (c) not very deep narratively. It felt more like a first draft full of notes that never got fleshed out.

“Privateers” by Charlie Newton follows Bill, a man mixed up in something much bigger than himself. After a past in CIA like affairs, Bill finds himself going back to Haiti to face old demons and potentially find a legendary golden treasure.

Newton creates a wild adventure following Al Capones gold. With three amazing women, this story gives off some Charlie’s Angels type vibes. With adventure around every turn, the reader could never guess what was coming next.

The riddles sprinkled throughout the book are interesting and adds layers to the adventure that makes it more than just brute force and violence as driving factors on who will find the treasure. This becomes an adventure where someone must be smart and brave in order to find the gold.

I also think the amount of research done for this book is evident. I never felt like facts were being twisted (although they may have been, I never checked). But even details of the various islands felt right to me.

The one critique I have for this book is that the beginning is very slow. It took me until about halfway through before I became invested in the story. I felt like some parts didn’t click together and made the story more complex than it needed to be.

In the end, I give this story 3 stars. I feel like this book would have made more sense in film, but if you enjoy a good adventure with treasure at the end, you would likely enjoy this book.

This was a pretty decent mystery story and I loved the setting, but something was just missing for me. There were good ideas in here but I just was never really drawn into the story in a way that made me want to keep reading it.

Indiana Jones is alive and well, if more scabrous, and he is in cahoots with two beautiful deadly women … Charlie Newton is one of the most propulsive, immersive thriller writers in town and in "Privateers," he embraces and updates the mystery quest idea, with wonderful results. Bill Owens, a Chicago hustler of knockdown character and a hidden heart of gold, becomes enmeshed in a quest, using clues from lines of hidden doggerel, to track down a ransom's fortune of gold looted from Haiti a century ago. A pell-mell plot careens through the Caribbean towards a finale that grows, incredibly, ever more fraught. Newton inhabits his characters, the exotic locales spring to life, and the dialogue is a treat. There is an element of those boys' own adventures from my childhood but it's such a pleasure to surrender to the pleasures of "Privateers" for an evening or two. Grab this and hold on for the ride.

I tried to like this. A treasure hunt, 3 powerful women, missing gold! It has everything a good thriller should have. But...as is often the case - the women are beautiful and have Barbie proportions. Not realistic. There's a sense of ...jerkyness to everyone in the entire book - and maybe that's the point, but I found it offputting.

It's full of lush descriptions of locations surrounding the mystery - but honestly - I couldn't have cared less.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity.

thriller, snark-fest, noir, action-adventure, testosterone-fest, mystery*****

"...the West side of Chicago is no more difficult to navigate than Beirut during a cease-fire."
You didn't think I'd start off with some of the more graphic descriptions of the actions of the privateers or Santeria acolytes in chapter one, did you? This is the start of chapter two and a good indication of the noir factors and the kind of snarky descriptions of other things, like the visits to Haiti and Cuba.
On the other hand, our protagonist gets himself into a whole lotta trouble because he needs money for the Grossfeld's Flyers, an ice hockey team made up of Down's Syndrome players.
It's a great read, and if you are as off center as me, you'll want to keep hot drinks away while reading it.
I requested an received a free ebook copy from Girl Friday Productions and Black Type Press via NetGalley. Thank you!

A solid mystery story. It's not a light story, but it's told effectively and memorably. The author has a good imagination, and this kept me mostly engaged; and includes well written characters and an unpredictable plot. Recommended for mystery fans.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

I had never heard of this author but saw a few posts in a Facebook group about it being really good.
The storyline had me intrigued and the characters were very well written and interesting.
I definitely got the mystery and thriller vibes off of the plot
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book

Wow! This is my first read written by Charlie Newton. And if you haven’t already noticed, Privateers has some very impressive advanced praise.

I found myself immediately drawn into this gripping story, described by the publisher as: “Three fierce women. A ghost ship’s treasure. And a bone-chilling Caribbean warlord.”

Privateers presents readers with a fascinating mystery. This is action-packed thriller, captivated me right from the start. An alarmingly fierce and ruthless thriller novel, Privateers was impossible to put down. And despite the brutal and ruthless nature of the story, there are also essential elements of sensitivity and kindness.

Thank you to NetGalley, Girl Friday Productions, and Black Type Press for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
This is one of those types of thrillers in which I couldn't stop reading, it was full of action, excitement, and mistery. It surprised me because it's the first book I read by Charlie Newton, it didn't disappoint me at all. The story starts with a crime that happened a long time ago, there was a lawyer from the University of Chicago and someone from London Day College. These two characters were participating in a dangerous mission that did not end very well. Years later Bill Owens will have the mission of finding Susie Devereux who apparently has a connection to what happened years ago, rumours indicate there is a treasure in Haiti. The treasure hunt turns out to be very exciting. Furthermore, Bill will have to travel to the Sacred Heart and also be very careful who he talks to because he's not the only one involved in this quest. I really enjoyed this thriller, especially the description of the places where Bill was visiting. Good book.