Henry Avery stealthily steered past Hog Island. In the English-controlled waters of the Bahamas, his crew was under strict orders to call him Captain Henry Bridgeman. The Fancy’s gold ...

Sean Kingsley and Rex Cowan’s “The Pirate King,” like all good historical mysteries, begins with archival drama. In 1978 the maritime historian Zélide Cowan (the wife of Rex) came across an ...