Marco Esperenza might not be the man we thought him to be.

In No Grave But the Sea, we empathized with the poor sailor who was turned into a vampire by a band of bloodsucking pirates and marooned at the bottom of the sea for 500 years. When finally freed by an underwater film crew, his only thought -- after satisfying a little immediate bloodlust, naturally -- was to avenge his wife and son on the pirates who done him wrong. But ... did they?

In No Quarter, Marco confronts his tormenters, led by their captain, Lesser Blackthroat. And he learns his history isn't quite the way he remembered it after five centuries at the bottom of the ocean. And the story just gets more convoluted from there.

It's another masterful chapter in the ongoing Sea of Red series. One complaint is the art, however -- not so much the style, which nicely matches Salgood Sam's rough-edged style from the previous book. But where Sam used a rust-brown hue that reminded readers of dried blood, replacement artist/colorist Paul Harmon tints his pages, um, pink. Truthfully, pink just is not a color that says pirates to me, or vampires. And this ain't your subtle pink tones, either; we're talking bright shades of Pepto Bismol.

That coloring snafu aside, the story is intense. I'll be back for volume three. I just hope it's not pink.