You can get Captain Kidd: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal at Amazon.
Review:
One word I use a great deal when reviewing Samuel Marquis’ historical offerings is ‘detail’. I’ll use it even more this time. Why? Because I love detail when it comes to history, even historical fiction, as long as it works with what’s being written. Even though I love history, I did get my degree in History Education. If it’s all just facts, I get bored and drift away, unless I’m doing the research. Text with history needs to also tell the story to help the reader be engaged and retain what they are reading. Marquis always makes it work. An example is his WWII trilogy, filled with detail that brings reality to the fiction he incorporates to make it all come together. I highly recommend the trilogy to anyone who is a history fan. And unless you’re a complete WWII history nerd, a term I use with admiration and affection, you will learn things you didn’t know before, something I always find a plus in any book I read, no matter the genre.
Before Captain Kidd: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal Sam wrote the non-fiction Blackbeard: The Birth of America, giving him a good familiarity of writing about a similar setting.
Sam brings that same attention to detail, even more so, in Captain Kidd: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal, the story of his ninth-great-grandfather. And who better to tell the story than Sam?
Unlike many who have taken on the story of Captain Kidd, Sam does not treat him as either fully a martyr or hero. No captain during the Golden Age of Piracy was fully one or the other. Those treated as one or the other either escaped scrutiny for their questionable acts, or were thrown to the wolves in spite of their more noble actions.
As you read Sam’s book, you’ll discover that Captain Kidd had his shades of gray, but what I enjoy is how Sam gives the information you need to develop a more complete picture or opinion of the man and how he might have come to make the decisions he did, and if the things he was accused of matches the man. We also get to see what historians discover but rarely gets disseminated to the masses, either in textbooks, or in any other mass media form, including film.
Sam shows us how Kidd ended up involved in the fateful adventure on the opposite side of the world from his beloved wife Sarah and children. An adventure that ends years later in his trial and execution in London.
I found it enjoyable to learn about Kidd’s time in New York and the important parts he played during his time there. It was during this time, I believe, Kidd made a bad decision that led to the disaster of the rest of his life. A decision that left his wife Sarah a widow with two children, and all ostracized by New York society that once held the Kidd family in high regard.
It is not often we learn about the details of Kidd’s journey through his beloved Sarah’s first two marriages, to their final union and onward to the fallout on Kidd’s family from his conviction as a pirate.
Sam goes into more detail than you normally find about Kidd’s piracy trial and how he really never stood a chance of having his innocence believed. There were powers at play that wanted and needed Captain Kidd to be found guilty. That part of the story, the part behind what I will call the railroading of a sea captain, is interesting in that it has nothing to do with Kidd at all.
Who would like this book?
Anyone interested in the true story of the more mythical Captain Kidd. Those who enjoy the history of the Golden Age of Piracy and finding out more of the behind the scenes action that dictated various actions of others outside of Captain Kidd.
You can get Captain Kidd: A True Story of Treasure and Betrayal at Amazon.
About Sam:
© 2025- Ronovan Hester Copyright reserved. The author asserts his moral and legal rights over this work.
Lit World Interviews 
Ronovan, I love your reviews. They are so thorough. You wrote a review for one of my books years ago, and I’ve never had another as well written.
I will certainly be buying this book.
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