If you like Patrick O''Brian and C. S. Forester, you will love this all-guns-blazing naval page-turner from multi-million copy seller Alexander Kent - guaranteed to have you hooked from page one!

''One of our foremost writers of naval fiction'' -- Sunday Times
''Shipwreck, survival ... a spirited battle ... a splendid yarn'' -- The Times
''Gripping to the end'' -- ***** Reader review
''Difficult to put down'' -- ***** Reader review
''Superb'' -- ***** Reader review
''Riveting'' -- ***** Reader review
''Exceptionally well written'' -- ***** Reader review
''What a story!'' -- ***** Reader review

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1804: England stands alone against France and the fleets of Spain, expecting an invasion any day. Entrusted with an urgent mission for the King, Vice-Admiral Richard Bolitho hoists his flag above the veteran seventy-four-gun ship Hyperion and sets sail with a new squadron for the Caribbean.

Plagued by the knowledge that both his troubled marriage and the eye injured in his last battle with Contre-Amiral Jobert are worsening, Bolitho is eager to leave England less than three months after his return home. But even his beloved old ship Hyperion, hastily restored from an ignominious existence as a hulk, is full of tormenting memories and lost faces.

Having navigated several battles along the way, he is roused in Antigua from his darkness of soul by the rediscovery of a passion which defies convention and every risk to his reputation.

His future is full of uncertainty as he sails east to Gibraltar, for a rendezvous that all who follow his flag will remember...