The Ghost in the Noonday Sun

Pirate adventure with a difference, lots of differences in fact, as it's a sort of side-splitting Captain Pugwash with an extended storyline. Oliver's twelfth birthday has an inauspicious start as he 'stepped on the tail of Jiboom, the one-eyed cat ... banged my shin and raised a lump the size of a turkey egg.' Things don't get much better after the captain of the Sweet Molly arrives in Oliver's life. Captain Scratch is a giant among pirates, towering over pygmies such as Captain Blood and Long John Silver, and when he decides Oliver is a lucky mascot, promptly kidnaps him. However, Oliver is desperate to find his father who 'almost three years ago put out from Nantucket to hunt whales', so goes along for the ride, until the tables are turned on the bold Captain. A welcome reissue for a humorous writer who ought to be better known in this country.