Held captive in a cabin on his own ship, the notorious pirate Long John Silver, fever-ridden and almost blind, is on his way towards England and the hangman’s noose. But before he hangs, Silver wants to record the incredible story of his life—not only for history’s sake, but also to taunt his captors, and perhaps tempt one of them to release him in exchange for the whereabouts of his fabled treasure. As the Linda Maria carries him towards his fate, he writes, with peacock feather plume in hand, his journal. SILVER is that journal.

Author Edward Chupack was struck with this idea for SILVER, his first novel and a parallel of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island from the villain’s point of view, while reading the classic to his son.  He found himself drawn to Long John Silver, who says very little in the original Treasure Island, and began to formulate a story that was at once a rousing adventure yarn and a riveting mystery. His story includes new characters like Edward Peach, Silver’s first mate, and Solomon, a Jewish man fleeing Spanish oppression, and gives us the “true story” of Silver’s life—from his childhood as an orphaned street urchin in Bristol’s back alleys, to his apprenticeship on the ship of  “the sea rat” Black John, to his ascent, via murder, to pirate captain. The journal follows his global quest to unravel a string of ciphers and clues hidden within Edward Peach’s family bible that point to the location of the world’s greatest treasure. But that’s not all; for Silver’s legacy is his treasure, and within his pages he hides a code that locates it—if the reader dares look.  

A rollicking, heart-pounding novel “by” one of literature’s greatest villains, SILVER is full, as Silver himself says “of treasure, as there is such pleasure in the telling of it, like nipping from a glass of brandy in the eventide, a long eventide made of odds and chances with a red dawn in the reckoning. And, he should be sure not to leave out the blood.” Chupack’s meticulous research on pirates and their place in history, as well as the addition of unique and compelling new characters, give SILVER an authenticity and flair that transcend genre lines.