Book description
As 1794 draws to a close Richard Bolitho, commanding the old
seventy-four-gun ship of the line Hyperion, leaves Plymouth to
join a squadron blockading the rising power of Revolutionary France.
After six months of repairs his ship is ready to fight again, but her
company is mostly raw and untrained.
Unfortunately, Bolitho finds himself under a commodore who is no
match for the French admiral, Lequiller, whose powerful squadron uses
guile and ruthless determination to elude him and vanish into the
Atlantic. Hyperion, as part of a small British force, gives
chase, the desperate voyage taking them from the Bay of Biscay's
squall to the heat of the Caribbean - and for each mile sailed and
every battle fought Bolitho finds himself being forced into the ever
more demanding role of strategist and squadron commander.
Douglas Reeman did convoy duty in the navy in the Atlantic, the
Arctic, and the North Sea. He has written over thirty novels under his
own name and more than twenty best-selling historical novels featuring
Richard Bolitho under the pseudonym Alexander Kent.
