Moore, a journalist, traveled to the Horn of Africa in 2012 to cover piracy in the region. Instead, he was himself abducted by Somali pirates and held for nearly three years. His book is the extraordinary account of an ordeal few Westerners have either experienced or fully understand. While vividly reporting his long nightmare, Moore also steps back and offers a distanced consideration of views and religious practices radically different from his own. At once harrowing, revelatory, and absorbing, Moore’s book provides a rare glimpse of life on a hijacked ship, a succinct summary of the economics and history of piracy, including the politics of hostage negotiation and ransom, and makes useful distinctions among Muslim pirates, Al-Shabaab, and ISIS.
