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David Ebright knows sailing. He knows the value of young friendships and he sure as hell knows adventure. <br />In Reckless Endeavor all three are vital to the lives of Jack Rackham and his circle of friends. The adventure in particular is not slow to come. As he did with Bad Latitude, the first in the Jack Rackham line, Ebright gets right to it. He doesn't mess around with intricate knots or long looks at the weather forecast, he sails his readers right into the eye of the storm. <br />It starts with some history, a pair of pirates brutalized in wretched prisons hundreds of years back. In short order, that history will collide with modern day where Jack Rackham is just beginning a new adventure. <br />After rescuing a homeless teenager from a knife-weidling lunatic and uncovering the secret of Mary, the spirit of a thief trapped in St. Augustine's Old Jail for one hundred years, Jack Rackham puts to sea with his friends in search of another lost treasture, this time aboard the magnificent schooner, Reckless Endeavor. <br />As a reader, I made the same mistake I made when I began Bad Latitude - I assumed it was a book written largely for young people and that it would be short on grown-up chills. Again, I was wrong. The Hardy Boys, I'm afraid, would not last a night with Jack Rackham and his friends. In addition to high seas spooks - like freak whirlpools and long-dead pirates rising from the mist - there are adult themes all over the place. Homelessness, loyalty, betrayal, love and greed are among them. Ebright weaves them into his story without steering away from the action, and the result is a high-seas page turner. <br />Ebright spins an impressive piece of fiction, but there is also a good bit of history to be found here. One of its main characters, after all, is Calico Jack, an English pirate who designed the Jolly Roger flag and who made a career out of plundering across the Bahamas in the early 18th century. In Reckless Endeavor, Ebright brings Calico Jack back to life and introduces him to young Jack Rackham, who bears a suspicious resemblance to the legendary pirate. The meeting might leave Jack Rackham and his friends fabulously wealthy or it could turn them into so much chum for the sharks. There's only one way to find out, bilge rats. Batten down the hatches, beat to quarters and take some Dramamine if you have to. Reckless Endeavor is one wild adventure.<br />Mark LaFlamme - Columnist & Author of BOX OF LIES