The River Pirate

by Charles Francis Coe

254 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1928

Reviews

[Arthur Pierce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told in the first person, this story concerns a tough teenager who goes to reform school and there befriends a hard-as-nails career criminal, who he eventually comes to idolize. Once free, the pair forms a partnership robbing warehouses along the waterfront and selling the merchandise to ship captains. Neither of the two main characters is especially sympathetic, nor is the police detective who continually hounds them. The narrator (the kid) also has a curious habit of spilling the beans about important incidents that are going to occur much later in the story. None-the-less, I found this novel to be moderately entertaining, particularly the first part in the reform school.