Very good pulp read. ERB knows his subject and definitely conveyed the feel of the period. This may be harder for those readers from the 70's onward to fully understand and appreciate. Like all of ERB's stories, it is fast paced and action packed.

There are plots and action enough for several books here. Billy Byrne is “The Mucker,” meaning he's a thug, and he’s pretty awful in the first plot. He becomes a pirate who kills for fun. He admits he would even kill a woman, or just punch her in the mouth, if that suited his purposes. Second plot:

If what you like is pulp adventure from the turn of the 20th century (and I really do), then Edgar Rice Burroughs is your man. This one takes an interesting and unusual turn in telling about a man with no redeeming values whatsoever whose participation in a kidnapping leads to a change of perspectiv

I really like the development of the character here, Billy Byrne, a kid from the mean Chicago streets who learns a bit about heroism.

I remembered this fondly & should have kept that vague memory. I didn't really remember much of the story, just bits here & there. Overall, it wasn't a bad story, but some elements of it were tough to take. While it was very well narrated, hearing the Mucker's (Billy) mangled version of American was

Billy Byrne transforms from a tough Chicago lowlife to an honorable man of action during a series of adventures in which he is shanghaied by pirates, battles samurai headhunters, and hides out from the law in Mexico, earning the love of a beautiful society woman in the process.

The edition I read inc

I was attracted to this book because I read it was unusual among Burroughs' work and in pulp in general. For me, it did strongly echo aspects of “The Monster Men” and of course “Tarzan of the Apes”, although it does have the unique distinction of hanging multiple genre types on a single characters'