New book details exploits of women pirates

Sara Lorimer's new book, "Booty, Girl Pirates on the High Seas," is an engaging — and humorous — study of some of history's most notorious female ocean brigands. It is illustrated by Susan Synarski, whose splashy, cartoon-like figures add an extra edge of danger and lunacy to the subject.

Lorimer details the exploits of pirates from ancient times — Alfhild was a voluptuous Viking who joined a pack of female marauders and terrorized shipping in the Baltic around the 9th century — to the 19th century: Sadie the Goat, so called for her keen abilities to head-butt her victims in the stomach, cruised New York Harbor and the upper Hudson River in the 1860s, robbing anchored ships from a small sloop and rowboat.

Chronicle Books, San Francisco; 415-537-4257 or www.ChronicleBooks.com.

By Ocean Navigator