Books by Alexander Kent

As captain of His Majesty's frigate Unrivalled of forty-six guns, Adam Bolitho is required to assist the senior officer of the patrolling squadron. But all efforts of the patrols to curb a flourishing trade in human life are hampered by unsuitable ships, and by the belligerence of the Dey of Algiers, which threatens to ignite a full-scale war.

The twelfth Richard Bolitho story that chronologically follows the events covered by "Signal - Close Action!" In September 1800, Richard Bolitho assumes command of his own squadron, but he soon realizes that his experience, gained in the line of battle, has ill-prepared him for the manoeuvring of power politics.

When in 1798, Richard Bolitho hoists his pendant as commodore of a squadron, and prepares to re-enter the Mediterranean, he is soon made aware of his responsibility. There are rumours of a massive French armada and of the latest type of artillery, and Bolitho's orders are to seek out the enemy, and to discover the intentions of his growing force.

The time is January 1782, and British Captain Richard Bolitho is ordered to take the frigate Phalarope to the Caribbean, where the hard-pressed royal squadrons are fighting for their lives against the combined fleets of France and Spain and the upstart American privateers.

For the young Richard Bolitho the spring of 1778 marked a complete transformation for himself and his future. It was the year in which the American War of Independence changed to an all-out struggle for freedom from British rule - and the year when Bolitho took command of the Sparrow, a small, fast and well-armed sloop of war.

At a time of shortages and sudden death, even a lieutenant can find himself faced with tasks and decisions more suitably given to officers of greater experience. And, as the Trojan, an eighty-gun ship of the line, goes about her affairs, the threat to Bolitho and his companions makes itself felt from New York to the Caribbean.

As 1794 draws to a close Richard Bolitho, commanding the old seventy-four-gun ship of the line Hyperion, leaves Plymouth to join a squadron blockading the rising power of Revolutionary France.

In March 1784, at a time when most of the fleet was laid up, His Majesty's frigate Undine weighed anchor at Spithead to begin a voyage to India and far beyond. As her new captain, Richard Bolitho was glad to go, despite the nature of his orders and the immensity of the voyage - for he was leaving an England suffering from the aftermath of war.

FEBRUARY 1806The frigate carrying Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho drops anchor off the shores of southern Africa.

In the spring of 1797, Richard Bolitho brings the 100-gun Euryalus home to Falmouth to be flagship of the hastily formed squadron, which has been chosen to make the first British re-entry to the Mediterranean for nearly a year. As flag captain, Bolitho is made to contend with the unyielding attitudes of his new admiral.

June 1793, Gibraltar - The gathering might of revolutionary France prepares to engulf Europe in another bloody war. For Richard Bolitho, the renewal of hostilities means a fresh command and the chance of action after long months of inactivity. Bolitho and the crew of the Hyperion are trapped by the French near a dry Mediterranean island.

OCTOBER 1789, NEW SOUTH WALESInto Sydney, capital of Britain's infant colony, sails the frigate Tempest.

The year is 1774 and Bolitho is the third lieutenant joining the 28-gun frigate Destiny at Plymouth. Despatched on a secret mission far south to Rio and then to the Caribbean, Destiny and her company face the hazards of conspiracy, treason and piracy - and, as the little ship sails on, Bolitho has to learn amid broadside battles at sea.