During the Napoleonic Wars, Royal Navy Capt. Alan Lewrie (Sea of Grey
) finds that he has been sentenced to death in absentia by a Jamaican kangaroo court for stealing slaves, and is pursued to England by enemies trying to carry out that sentence. As the famously byzantine British legal system grinds on, Lewrie becomes a cause célèbre among William Wilberforce's abolitionists, who hire a hotshot barrister to defend Lewrie. While waiting for his case to come up, Lewrie (released until then because of his social standing) returns to H.M.S. Savage
, now on blockade duty off southwest France. He quickly turns a dull assignment on its ears by organizing an amphibious raid against fortifications on the French coast while dealing with an old rival with a grudge and a secret. Lambdin manages to make the Bleak House
–like British legal system of the era comprehensible to the layman, while his mastery of period naval warfare gives his battles real punch. (Jan.)
