"Bill Westbrook's follow-up to The Bermuda Privateer is buoyed by details of history and seamanship that will delight any fan of saltwater yarns and explosive action."—Broos Campbell author of the Matty Graves Novels That 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.Nico, meanwhile, has been trying his damnedest to become a salt merchant under Ezra Somers, father of the beautiful Elinore. But when an urgent request arrives from Admiral Davies of the Leeward Island Station, Ezra and Elinore give Nico their blessing to head off in search of plunder and adventure. Sailing aboard the American-built topsail schooner Rascal, Nico takes on the job of slipping a secret agent into Cuba, but soon becomes entangled in...

A Nicholas Fallon Sea Novel.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...

Hailed as groundbreaking by David Donachie, author of the John Pearce Naval Series and the Privateersman Mysteries— "All sea stories should tell you something new, and The Bermuda Privateer meets that criterion in spades. Fast paced and covering an area new to me; I was enthralled by the author's encyclopedic knowledge of the Caribbean. There are battles and conspiracies galore, with engaging characters and thrilling actions." Nicholas Fallon is captain of the schooner Sea Dog, a privateer that is fast, beautiful and deadly. Unbound by Royal Navy tradition, Fallon enjoys total independence in where he goes, how he fights, and whom he takes as crew. A woman—Beauty McFarland—is his first lieutenant. It's 1796, and Sea Dog's owner, Ezra Somers, employs Fallon to protect his Caribbean salt trade from French privateers and pirates. Wicked Jak Clayton is especially ruthless. When the two meet just off the Bahamas, even Fallon's...