Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas Hardcover - 2002

by John S. Burnett

While sailing alone one night in the shipping lanes across one of the busiest waterways in the world, John Burnett was attacked by pirates. Through sheer ingenuity and a little bit of luck, he survived, and his shocking firsthand experience became the inspiration for this book. Dangerous Waters charts the resurgence of piracy in recent years and reveals why it poses a significant threat to our safety and security.

Today's breed of pirates are not the colorful cutthroats painted by the history books. Unlike the romantic images from yesteryear of Captain Hook, Long John Silver, and Blackbeard, they can be local seamen looking for a quick score, highly trained guerrillas, rogue military units, or former seafarers recruited by sophisticated crime organizations. Armed with machetes, assault rifles, and grenade launchers, they steal out in speedboats and fishing boats in search of supertankers, cargo ships, passenger ferries, cruise ships, and yachts, attacking them at port, on the open seas, and in international waters. Entire ships, cargo, and crews simply vanish, hijacked by pirates working for multinational crime syndicates; these modern-day ghost ships turn up later carting illegal immigrants to the United States or running drugs. Burnett probes this dangerous world of thievery and mayhem, from the life-and-death struggles of brave captains and their crews, to the pirate hunters with bounties on their heads, and to the shadowy groups themselves who employ these ruthless, modern-day mercenaries.

A dauntless investigation into a chilling phenomenon, Dangerous Waters is an epic, breathtaking modern tale of the sea.