Code of Theophilus

A real pirate named Theophilus Turner once sailed with Captain William Kidd, and attempted to leave the pirate ship Adventure Galley in Delaware Bay, and sail up the Chesapeake to settle peacefully in the Bay watershed.  That really happened.

In the new novel by Jay Zimmer, Turner steals booty from Kidd's ship before making good his escape.  Taken up the Chesapeake by the turncoat Andrew Gravenrod, he is arrested at Annapolis by minions of the Maryland Royal Governor and charged with piracy.  He escapes by killing the minions.  Kept on  the lam by relentless pursuit by Kidd, Turner buries his treasure somewhere in the Chesapeake Watershed.  Driven mad by the constant pursuit by the angry pirate captain, Turner begins to hide clues to the location of his treasure wherever his escape route took him -- from St. Michaels, to the future site of the U.S. Naval Academy, to North Carolina's Outer Banks.  Captured at last by Kidd he is taken to Boston and prepared for hanging.  But Kidd himself is arrested, and Turner escapes -- and disappears.

Turn the clock ahead 200 years.  One of Turner's clues, unearthed as workers excavate the Naval Academy, turns up in a warehouse that is on fire.  The clue -- a leather map fragment and some pieces of eight, contained in a lard canister, is put in a warehouse safe.  It disappears when the warehouse burns, spiking the curiosity of Baltimore newspaperman Peter McDermott, and Maryland Historic Authority curator Emil Rojas.  Intrigued by the clue to the treasure, and convinced that there are others, McDermott and his boss, Charlie Hume, and intrepid reporter Rod Pitcher, join forces with the curator and his boss to find the treasure.

Enter a greasy, uncouth salvage boat captain and his oily partner, who learn of the pirate treasure from Eve Somers, who is alternately the salvage captain's girlfriend, and Peter McDermott's.  Aided by a ship owned and operated by a South American drug cartel, this faction also seeks out the treasure, following McDermott and Company all over the eastern seaboard as they search.  It's intrigue a-plenty and deadly danger as both factions seek the treasure for their own reasons.