In Search of Pirates – A modern day odyssey in the South China Sea (book review)

Title :-In Search of Pirates –  A modern day odyssey in the South China Sea.

By :- Robert Stuart

Published :- Mainstream publishing, Edinburgh and London (2002) Hard back (220 pages)

Outline;- The book opens with a story of a serious hijack where the pirates forced the crew to repaint & rename the ship before slaughtering all the crew and taking the ship to Southern China. The author / reporter decides to look further into piracy about the Malacca straits and heads to Batam. He interviews fishermen who are part time smugglers and do a little pirating (steeling) from parked ships. He talks to the Indonesian navy and to Singapore port and court authorities. From all this we learn that much of the common piracy is not so violent, and has some justification through historical and cultural elements.

A rather simple story of a journalist.