The nylon pirates - Nicholas Monsarrat

No Jolly Roger, no cannonballs whining across the Caribbean seas, no shrieking rabble of half-dressed, bearded cutthroats tumbling into the ship; none of these heralded the arrival of the Nylon Pirates. For they were the pirates of the twentieth century sealanes, suave, elegant, discreet, moving with ease amongst the luxury to which they were accustomed. Yet they were still pirates in the old tradition, for they came with calculated greed and malice, and even without cutlasses and pistols, their methods were, if anything, more ruthless, more predatory, than any in the long line of their predecessors.

They boarded the Alcestis in New York, a British luxury liner bound on a cruise for the Caribbean, South America, and Africa. Their traveling companions, their victims, were the rich, the spoiled, the extravagant, the weak; businessmen with middle-aged spread, large bank balances and unforgiving wives, legacy-laden matrons, and divorcees with alimony. All could be induced or forced to assist in the redistribution of their wealth.

They played for high stakes, without scruples. Carl Wenstrom was a fine poker-player, a trickster and a swindler. Kathy and Diane were beautiful and young; they had their own game to play; some might call it love, almost everybody blackmail; but it was to be played hard and often, and for high prices. Louis was young and amiable, an ideal bedside companion to rich matrons who could be made to pay for their delusions of continued youth. The Professor, ironically engaged in writing his History of Piracy, was the informant, the accountant, the distinguished colours that hid the pirate flag.

In The Nylon Pirates Nicholas Monsarrat returns to the ocean for the first time in a novel since his world best-seller, The Cruel Sea. He finds the sea and the seamen unchanged in the transition from war to peace, but the same cannot be said of the people they serve. The Nylon Pirates is an honest portrayal of human beings at their best and their worst, confined in the microcosm of a ship.