Golden Legacy
Golden Legacy draws on one of piracy’s most iconic woman captains to build a straightforward quest for untold riches.
Golden Legacy by Robert James Glider depicts a daring crew of treasure hunters in a thrilling global adventure to find a secret pirate stash before a cabal of ruthless villains.
The second entry in the Jacsen Kidd series shifts the focus to Kidd’s ex-lover, Dr. Abigail Hathaway-Chance. When Abigail’s mother dies suspiciously, she leaves behind a letter pointing to an island where the legendary pirate queen Anne Bonney secreted away some loot. Abigail enlists Kidd to suss out the island—a needle-in-a-haystack situation that Kidd and his gang are ready and able to solve. Meanwhile, a dastardly priest and a power-hungry crime lord join forces with a local group of thugs to reach the prize first.
Golden Legacy takes the traditional treasure hunt and adds a few unique twists. With a large cast of villains, the plot alternates between advancing the quest and infighting. Two disparate groups join forces to win the race to the island, but greed drives them to attack each other.
Shifting the focus from Kidd to some of the secondary figures fleshes out the world nicely. Abigail and a local woman named Chauncey serve as the focus, and drive most of the plot forward with clear-cut motivations and personal goals. Several of Chauncey’s actions thrust her forward as a major character, pushing Kidd and his allies out of the spotlight.
Unexplained plot contrivances hamper the otherwise steady pacing. Abigail—and others—have vivid hallucinations chronicling the past; this provides necessary plot advancement, but there is no satisfactory explanation given for the visions.
The villains’ infighting also tends to muddle the story. Tension drains from the adventure as villains die off one by one, until the empowering showdown between Chauncey and the remaining bad guy. Most of the conflict is tied up and shunted aside too neatly for the heroes’ victory to feel satisfying.
The decision to make Abigail’s ancestry unclear adds unneeded complications that could be removed without hampering the flow of the story. Her heritage is fairly clear from the beginning, but is shrouded in mystery for no real reason. Her troubled past with Kidd features some aspects that add a layer of incredulity and that artificially inflate dramatic tension, something that the action already does perfectly well.
Golden Legacy draws on one of piracy’s most iconic woman captains to build a straightforward quest for untold riches.
Reviewed by
John M. Murray
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