Bøger af Chris Durbin

Even before Spain joined the war in early 1762, it was obvious that it wouldn't have the strategic effect that the cousins, King Louis and King Charles, had hoped. France needed a success to bring Britain to the negotiating table: nothing grand - Louis didn't have the force for that - but something that would hurt the City of London in its pocket.A raid on the Newfoundland fisheries would have an immediate financial impact. In normal times the dried cod provided an important dietary supplement to the population of the Atlantic basin and a steady stream of gold for the City's coffers. The longer-lasting effect would come from the loss of the trained seamen that the fishery provided to the navy in time of war.George Holbrooke's frigate Argonaut is in the thick of the action as he is pitted against an old adversary. Fishery protection was one of the Royal Navy's earliest tasks and it continues to patrol the rich waters around Britain to this day. It may not be exciting, but it's always been a part of naval life. An Upright Man offers an insight into the vital Newfoundland fishery in the eighteenth century.This, the fourteenth Carlisle and Holbrooke novel, continues the journey through the Seven Years War and into the period of turbulent relations between Britain and her American colonies.

In 1761 the cousins King Louis of France and King Charles of Spain agreed in secret that Spain would enter the war against Britain by spring of the following year.Edward Carlisle's ship of the line Dartmouth is sent from Jamaica on what looks like a trivial mission intended to demonstrate friendship to Spain. However, in Havana he finds evidence of growing co-operation between the French and Spanish navies. While carrying the new governor of Guatemala to his domain he uncovers further plots, and his wife, Lady Chiara, uses her talents for languages and diplomacy to earn a seat at the ship's councils of war.Carlisle's search for evidence of preparations for war takes him further west into the Gulf of Mexico, and to a final battle with a more familiar enemy.--------------------------Cousins At Arms offers the reader the thunder of guns and the clash of cutlasses, but at its heart it's a thoughtful analysis of a nation's ill-judged slide into war. This is the thirteenth Carlisle and Holbrooke novel. It continues the journey through the Seven Years War and into the period of turbulent relations between Britain and her American colonies, and ultimately to their bid for independence.

It is 1761. The British prime minister, William Pitt, is faced with the need to relieve French pressure on Hanover. He is against sending more British regiments to the continent and instead decides to draw the French army away from Germany by a repeat of the descents on the French coast that he tried three years earlier. The chosen target is Belle Isle, an important island that lies between the principal French Atlantic naval ports. George Holbrooke's ship Argonaut is sent ahead of Commodore Keppel's squadron to gather intelligence on the French army's movements by inserting an intelligence agent into Brittany. The agent is betrayed and wounded, and his contact in France must be rescued from the certainty of a traitor's death. Holbrooke finds that the only way to accomplish his orders is to land on French soil himself, by moonlight, and seek out the agent's contact. In a ruined cottage close to the sea, he makes a surprising discovery. Treacherous Moon is the twelfth Carlisle and Holbrooke novel. The series follows the two sea officers through the Seven Years War and into the period of turbulent relations between Britain and her American colonies prior to their bid for independence.