Silver (2008)

''A lie is peach pie. The truth is porridge,'' says Long John Silver, the brazenly duplicitous fabulist of this invigorating novel by Edward Chupack. Imprisoned on his own ship bound for England and the gallows, the Treasure Island buccaneer tells the saga of his bloody rise from street urchin to pirate captain, while parceling out clues to a buried treasure. What fills Silver's sails is not so much the mystery as its richly imagined protagonist. Given to exotic turns of phrase (London is a town of ''skinny dogs and fat rats''; a scurvied mate has a mouth like a ''shallow grave''), the old salt's tale gleams like a sharpened cutlass. B+