The Sisters Brothers meets Master and Commander in Robert Hough’s rollicking and raucous new historical novel.

The year is 1664, and Benny Wand, a young thief and board game hustler, is arrested in London for illegal gaming. Deported to the city of Port Royal, Jamaica, known as “the wickedest city on earth,” Wand is forced by his depleted circumstances to join a raid on the Spanish city of Villahermosa. The mission is a perilous success, and Wand attracts the attention of the mission’s leader, an up-and-coming Welsh seaman, Captain Henry Morgan, whose raids on Spanish strongholds are funded by the British government.

While embarking on a campaign in the Caribbean, Wand and Morgan develop an unlikely friendship through a shared love of chess. As Morgan is corrupted by his increasingly sordid attacks on Spanish cities, he slowly becomes Wand’s greatest enemy. To defeat his former ally, Wand embarks on a strategic battle of wits and must help Morgan in the most savage and unexpected way possible. This is blistering and bawdy storytelling at its best.

Robert Hough has been published to rave reviews in fifteen territories around the world. He is the author of The Final Confession of Mabel Stark (Vintage Canada, 2002), shortlisted for both the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best first book and the Trillium Book Award; The Stowaway (Vintage Canada, 2004), one of the Boston Globe’s top ten fiction titles of 2004; The Culprits (Vintage Canada, 2008); Dr. Brinkley’s Tower (House of Anansi, 2012), shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for fiction and longlisted for the Giller Prize; The Man Who Saved Henry Morgan (House of Anansi, 2015), a finalist for the Trillium Book Award; and Diego’s Crossing (Annick Press, 2015), shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis Award. Hough lives in Toronto, ON.

Robert Hough's profile page

• Short-listed, Trillium Book Award

Robert Hough’s novels reveal a capacity for carefully researched forays into strikingly esoteric areas… The deft conjuring of this world…is the novel’s greatest strength.

Quill and Quire

…a novel packed with rip-roaring adventure…

Toronto Star

…Hough’s latest is a genuine pleasure to read, and to be taken in by.

National Post

A gifted, natural storyteller…The Man Who Saved Henry Morgan is Hough’s most amiable book, its prose moving along like a perfectly rigged sloop-of-war.

Globe and Mail

Hough is noted for meticulous research…a well-told story

Winnipeg Free Press

Bawdy and irresistible, this is an adventure you don’t want to miss.

W Dish