Böcker av William Westbrook

The night turned prematurely dark as the storm seemed to suck the light out of the day. Captain Nicholas Fallon and his crew aboard the British privateer Rascal stood to the monstrous seas hour after hour, their minds numb and their bodies bloodied from the fight.Suddenly, a light.Only the remarkable seamanship of Rascal's indomitable first mate Beatrice McFarland can save a simple cod fisherman who brings aboard a fantastic tale of gold ransom, kidnapping, and the unimaginable cruelty of the Barbary pirates.Thus begins a superbly written tale of heroism and greed, duplicity and cunning that will thrust Fallon and Beauty into the dangerous currents of American politics and British appeasement of a wicked ruler half a world away. Barbarians on an Ancient Sea is awash in spectacular battle scenes so vivid and concussive that the smell of spent gunpowder hangs about the reader. Bahamian pirates work in tandem to attack salt ships convoyed by Rascal; a French frigate appears within a snow squall like a deadly apparition; a dead American lieutenant is found adrift in a ship's boat, condemned to death by a ruthless pirate who must be lured from his lair and made to pay; and, finally, the armed galleys of the dey of Algiers attack Rascal on the high seas, searching for something more precious than the gold ransom she carries. Fallon's cunning escape from an Algerian prison and the climactic battle against a vengeful Algerian admiral at the height of a sirocco rank with the best of historical naval fiction.All Fallon's courage and strategic brilliance are called into play in this exciting tale-a worthy follow-up to The Bermuda Privateer and The Black Ring. Author William Westbrook has a modern storyteller's voice and a sure knowledge of the sea and the men and women who brave it.

"The dashing British privateer Nicholas Fallon is back again, helping himself to a fistful of mayhem in The Black Ring. The year is 1798. The African slave trade is in brutal flower, and the great powers are fighting for control of the Caribbean's immensely profitable sugar plantations. Nicholas, meanwhile, has been trying his damnedest to become a salt merchant under Ezra Somers, father of the beautiful Elinor. But when an urgent request arrives from Admiral Davies of the Leeward Island Station, Ezra and Elinor give Nicholas their blessing to head off in search of plunder and adventure. Sailing aboard the American-built topsail schooner Rascal, Nicholastakes on the job of slipping a secret agent into Cuba, but soon becomes entangled in numerous dangers--or opportunities, as he likes to call them. There's an escaped slave trying to burn every stalk of sugarcane in Cuba, a pirate running riot with a flotilla of "little wolves," an admiral's lady that needs a bit of rescuing, and a French plot that threatens Britain's very presence in the islands. Bill Westbrook's follow-up to The Bermuda Privateerwill delight any fan of exciting saltwater yarns"--