Pirates and Lost Treasure of Coastal Maine - by Greg Latimer (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Maine has never been regarded as a pirate haven, but only because witnesses were few and far between. With a rugged coast and more than four thousand offshore islands, Maine's dark waters attracted sea raiders like Dixie Bull from the 1600s through colonial times. Pirate treasure still awaits discovery in Phippsburg and Machias, and pirate deceit prompted a massacre in ancient Fort Loyall. The infamous Captain Kidd may have prowled the waters off Deer Isle, while farther down the coast a woman and a bloodthirsty band of cutthroats lured ships to disaster at Isles of Shoals. Award-winning investigative journalist Greg Latimer separates historical fact from fiction and leads readers on an adventure through the state's foggy and treacherous past.

About the Author

Greg Latimer has been separating fact from fiction since he first started as a newspaper reporter at the age of sixteen, and he continues to do so with his latest title. By age eighteen, he was a full-time reporter/photographer for a newspaper in Los Angeles. It was only several years later that he moved up to the position of investigative reporter for the daily Los Angeles Herald Examiner, where he established his reputation through coverage of the infamous torture-murders committed by Roy Lewis Norris and Lawrence Sigmund Bittaker. His fact-based investigative reporting came to the attention of a detective lieutenant with the police department in Hermosa Beach, California (located in southwest Los Angeles County), and Latimer was recruited as a police evidence photographer. After some years there, he returned to journalism and eventually moved to Maine, where he was employed by the Lincoln County Publishing Company in Newcastle until his retirement in 2018. In 2001, he was recognized by the New England Press Association with an award for investigative reporting. Latimer is the research director for Mysterious Destinations (mysteriousdestinationsmagazine.com), an online publication that explores mysteries in the United States and Caribbean, and the marketing director for Red Cloak Tours in Maine, where he also guides maritime history tours. Latimer has worked as a pirate reenactor in Maine, firing cannons and black powder small arms, participating in sword fights and sailing armed vessels, giving him a sense of piracy that is up close and personal. He continues to do speaking engagements as the pirate "Scribe," a character fashioned after a real sea rover, William Dampier, who circled the globe three times as a navigator aboard English ships seeking Spanish treasure. His books Haunted Damariscotta and Ghosts of the Boothbay Region were previously published by The History Press/Arcadia Publishing.