At last we have an American character the equivalent of Hornblower or Aubrey.
Description
Commander Peter Wake, U.S. naval intelligence agent, is in Florida in 1888 culminating an espionage mission to learn Spain's naval readiness in Cuba. He and sidekick Sean Rork are hoping to wrap it up and head home on their annual leave. But a beautiful woman from Wake's past shows up, begging him to find her missing son. He agrees, and thus Honor Bound, Wake sets off across Florida and through the Bahamian islands with a motley band, including a Smithsonian ethnologist, a naval architect, a Bahamian Seminole sailor, Russian spies, British military intelligence, and a Polish-Haitian soldier. The search for the boy leads Wake through an ever-deepening maze of international intrigue—and an ever more passionate relationship with the boy's enticing mother.
After enduring storms, mutiny, and shipwreck, Wake and his group find themselves deep in the jungles of Haiti and the alien world of the Bizango culture and the vodou religion. The trail leads Wake to the hidden lair of an anarchist group, only to learn they are planning to wreak havoc around the world—unless he stops it.
Reviews
My advice is to sign on early and set sail with Peter Wake for both solid historical context and exciting sea stories!
Macomber is the O'Brian of the Caribbean.
The Peter Wake novels are more than just gripping stories about life at sea—they offer a carefully rendered, historically accurate imagining of America's naval history in the second half of the 19th century.
