Max Hardberger
Max has a B.A. in English from the University of New Orleans. As a post-graduate, Max attended the “Writers’ Workshop” at the University of Iowa. In 1972 he received a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction and Poetry. At various times in his life, Max has worked as a ship captain, newspaper reporter, English and history teacher, crop duster, private investigator, maritime lawyer, flight instructor, ship surveyor, commercial aircraft pilot, sailing instructor, insurance adjuster, vessel repossession specialist, filmmaker, oilfield mud engineer, stuntman, ship breaker and even a drummer in a blues band. His adventures have taken him throughout the world—from lawless ports in the Caribbean and the war-torn jungles of Central America to the once-forbidden city of Vladivostok—where he crossed paths with a veritable rogue’s gallery of characters, including Haitian rebels, modern-day Caribbean pirates, and Russian mobsters. Author Photo © Michael Bono licensed under CC-SA.
8 Books Written
A searing series of voyages into the violent, lawless underbelly of tramp shipping. Capt. Max Hardberger and his crew fought a non-stop battle against crooked charterers, treacherous agents, and the sea itself. They came face-to-face with bandits in Jamaica, violent stowaways in the Dominican Republic, and warring gangs in post-Duvalier Haiti. It was a world of desperation and danger, where only t
Seized: A Sea Captain's Adventures Battling Scoundrels and Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships in the World's Most Troubled Waters
by Max Hardberger
Rating: 3.9 ⭐
Seized throws open the hatch on the shadowy world of maritime shipping, where third-world governments place exorbitant liens against ships, pirates seize commercial vessels with impunity, crooks and con artists reign supreme on the docks and in the shipyards—and hapless owners have to rely on sea captain Max Hardberger to recapture their ships and win justice on the high seas. A ship c
A blazing new mystery novel by Max Hardberger, author of Seized and Freighter Captain, drawing from Chandler, Hammett, Cain, and Thompson to create a new detective for a new millenium--smart, tough, and spoiling for a fight.
In 1971, a young man flees the draft and the turmoil of the early 70's on the Sea Witch, an ancient sailboat so unstable and dangerous that he soon renames her the Sea Bitch. Six months of danger and desperation follow, on the high seas and in hellhole ports throughout the Caribbean, before he decides to return to the United States and an uncertain future.
Ben Williams, a Mexican-American oilfield hand working on a drilling rig in Guatemala, falls in love with a Maya rebel leader, Ixaak, and joins her in the fight to create an independent country in the Peten region of the country. He soon takes charge of the movement and leads his band of rebel fighters in a desperate struggle against the Guatemalan army, death squads, and the jungle itself, until
The Sea Bitch: Dangerous Seas, Desperate Voyages
by Max Hardberger
In 1971, a young man flees the draft and the turmoil of the early 70's on the Sea Witch, an ancient sailboat so unstable and dangerous that he soon renames her the Sea Bitch. Six months of danger and desperation follow, on the high seas and in hellhole ports throughout the Caribbean, before he decides to return to the United States and an uncertain future.
As the Coronavirus sweeps the world, Captain Mike Murkowski takes on a dangerous assignment. . .to investigate the sinking of a cargo ship, with the loss of all hands, in the Indian Ocean. His investigation takes him to the pirate town of Hobyo, Somalia, to a pirate shipyard in Greece, and then to Holland and Cairo before he arrives at a remote anchorage in Djibouti where the daughter of the ship'