Book description
December 1815
Adam Bolitho's orders are unequivocal. As captain of His Majesty's
frigate Unrivalled of forty-six guns, he is required to 'repair
in the first instance to Freetown, Sierra Leone, and reasonably assist
the senior officer of the patrolling squadron. But all efforts of the
British anti-slavery patrols to curb a flourishing trade in human life
are hampered by unsuitable ships, by the indifference of a government
more concerned with old enemies made distrustful allies, and by the
continuing belligerence of the Dey of Algiers, which threatens to
ignite a full-scale war.
For Adam, also, there is no peace. Lost in grief and loneliness, his
uncle's death still unavenged, he is uncertain of all but his identity
as a man of war. The sea is his element, the ship his only home, and a
reckless, perhaps doomed attack on an impregnable stronghold his only
hope of settling the bitterest of debts.
Alexander Kent is the author of twenty-eight acclaimed books
featuring Richard Bolitho. Under his own name, Douglas Reeman, and in
the course of a career spanning forty-five years, he has written over
thirty novels and two non-fiction books.
