The Desert and the Sea: 977 Days Captive on the Somali Pirate Coast by Michael Scott Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Journalist Michael Scott Moore went to Somalia to interview a Somali pirate but his local contacts betray him and he ends up being captured and held for ransom. "You have made a mistake, mistakes are human," he is told by one of his captors.

He spends the next two and a half years in captivity, part of the time on board a captured Chinese fishing boat, and part of the time on land, hidden away in various remote houses. Often there is little to eat but cold spaghetti and mango juice and some of the guards are brutally abusive, but Moore manages to paint many pirates as victims of their circumstances or their own mistakes. A fascinating look into a little known part of the world.

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