Birds of Prey

This is an okay book written by Wilbur Smith. In 1667, Sir Francis Courteney and his son Hal are on patrol in a caravel ship off of Cape Agulhas on the coast of southern Africa. They are lying in wait to capture the treasure from the more advanced galleon ship of the Dutch East India Company. Francis is betrayed and his crew is captured by the Dutch. After escaping, Hal seeks revenge and winds up joining forces with the Christians in Ethiopia against Muslim invaders.

This is the first book in the Third Sequence of the Courtney series and was published in 1997. The author was born in 1933 in Northern Rhodesia (now known as Zambia), but he currently lives in England. He has been married four times.

The legends of Prester John began during the 12th century when Europeans were anxious for a powerful Christian leader. There does not appear to be a real individual that he was based on and many fanciful abilities were attributed to him. The legend seemed to fade out in the 17th century, when historians were unable to confirm any ruler by that name. The Anglo-Dutch wars involved conflicts between the English and Dutch over control of the seas and trade routes during the mid to late 1600s.