I was not expecting much when I started to read this book. I have a mostly unfounded fascination for contemporary cultural images of piracy, and I wanted to get this under my belt to earn a little street cred. Turns out, it's amazing. It took me a couple of chapters to pick up the rhythm and vocabulary of Stevenson's style, but once I was able to focus on the story itself, I didn't want it to end. Stevenson does a brilliant job of portraying pirates for the criminals that they were, mostly by viewing them through the eyes of an innocent young boy, who overhears a dark conversation while hiding in an apple barrel and also spends a tense scene trying to escape his home with his mother before the bad guys materialize out of the misty night to kill them both for treasure. The book is scary, with some real surprises and well-developed characters, and I loved it.