1787: Captain Edward Brazier is devastated to find Betsey, the woman he wants to marry, imprisoned in her own home by her brother, Henry Tulkington, and trapped in an illegal marriage. With Brazier suspected of acting as a spy for a prime minister seeking to halt smuggling activity on the coast and still posing a threat to Betsey’s increasingly deranged brother, he is walking a dangerously fine line.
But Tulkington’s arrogance is making him enemies, even in his own family, and his actions are becoming increasingly violent towards everyone who thinks to defy him. Brazier's only option is to join with the darker denizens of Deal in the hope of constructing an alliance which will see his lady freed.
David Donachie (1944–2023) was born in Edinburgh. He always had an abiding interest in military history, including ancient Rome, the Middle Ages, the British navy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the clandestine services during the Second World War. He had more than fifty published novels to his credit, with over a million combined sales. David lived in Deal, the historic English seaport on the border of the English Channel and the North Sea.