Douglas Reeman

Few biographies have caught more of the spirit and color of the age of Charles II than this life of Sir Robert Holmes. Adventurous, energetic, combative and unscrupulous, Robert Holmes first attracted the attention of Prince Rupert as a young cavalry officer in the Civil War. As a Royalist exile, he accompanied the Prince first into the French service and then, in one of the strangest and most romantic episodes in naval history, on a cruise that carried the Royalist colors -- no longer flying in England -- to Portugal, the Mediterranean, West Africa and the West Indies. After the Restoration, Holmes destroyed, in perhaps the most successful single feat of arms of the century, a great part of the Dutch merchant marine at the cost of barely a dozen casualties. For thirty years he intrigued, maneuvered and quarreled with Samuel Pepys over naval matters ending with a mutual respect for their combined contributions to English naval supremacy. - Back cover.

It is March 1811, and Richard Bolitho is recalled to duty after only two and a half months of precious peace in Cornwall with his beloved mistress Catherine. Promoted Admiral, his choice of flagship and flag captain shock the Admiralty, but Bolitho, poignantly aware of his own vulnerabilitiy, surrounds himself only with those men he can trust completely: the faithful Allday, the withdrawn and intelligent Avery, and James Tyacke, who must confront the sternest test of his loyalty with great personal courage. When diplomacy fails the cannon must speak, and Bolitho, patrolling the troubled waters from Antigua north to Halifax, knows that when war with America comes he must fight an enemy not foreign but familiar, for the freedom to leave the sea forever.

Traces America's advancements in the study of the universe to the Space Shuttle disaster and the possibility of travel beyond our solar system.

Eté 1801, après une incursion mouvementée dans la Baltique, Richard Bolitho est dépêché par l'Amirauté sur un autre front : la Corse, qui montre des aspirations à la paix, mais prépare en secret une opération décisive : l'invasion de l'Angleterre.

Home from the sea on leave in Cornwall, a 17-year-old midshipman becomes involved with smuggling, murder, and "wrecking."

Continues the adventures of Richard Bolitho, this time during the Battle of Copenhagen where Lord Nelson leads the British to victory over the Danish fleet.

In 1772 a sixteen-year-old midshipman joins the crew of the "Gorgon" whose mission is to investigate the slave trade on Africa's west coast.