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rosseroo's review against another edition
3.0
Twin plots alternate in this somewhat unfulfilling novel about two Scots named Martin Law who -- in very different times and very different ways -- step outside of the bounds of law-abiding life. The first Martin is a young university student summering in the Riviera with a few classmates in the early 1990s. A chance meeting, coupled with a greater taste for adventure than his pals, leads contemporary Martin to ditch the campground and squat in a posh yacht with his enigmatic and shady new French pal. One thing leads to another, and soon he's ditched his studies and his family, and is into drug dealing, then some strange boating, before finally settling down with a Scandinavian beauty, having a kid, and opening a bar in Marbella. Meanwhile, alternating chapters tell the story of 18th-century Martin, who has completed his studies to become a doctor and signed on to be ship's doctor. The boat is a poorly commanded vessel destined to partake in the slave trade, and it doesn't take long for him to realize that he can't be a party to such evil. Some swashbuckling later, he emerges as a pirate captain. The parallel Martin's are basically good guys who drift into lives of crime, but the twin storylines don't add up to much more than a well-done gimmick.
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