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The Halfhyde Line

Recently separated from the Royal Navy, Halfhyde’s maiden voyage as owner/master of the steamer Taronga Park is disrupted when his cargo turns out to be guns headed for rebels in Western Ireland rather than machine parts—and the cargo's owner boards the ship to take command. Only Halfhyde's grim determination to prevail carries the day.

Halfhyde Outward Bound

Halfhyde finds himself unexpectedly placed on shore on the half-pay list of the Royal Navy (following the debacle of Captain Watkiss's accidental death chronicled in Halfhyde on Zanatu) and decides to broaden his experience at sea on a merchantman bound for Sydney. His ship, the Aysgarth Falls, has an unsavory crew consisting primarily, it seems, of villians on the run from the police. Bad weather and outbreaks of fighting in the fo'c'sle herald the dangers ahead.

Halfhyde on the Yangtze

Far up the Yangtze River, the European presence in Chungking is threatened with rebellion and massacre by the Chinese. With the Russians and Germans poised to take advantage of lapsing British treaties, tactful intervention in rescuing the terrified civilians while keeping trade with the mandarins is essential.

This is hardly a suitable task for the bombastic Captain Watkiss, whose wildly aggressive tactics require skillful subversion by his long-suffering Lieutenant Halfhyde.

Halfhyde and the Flag Captain

Lieutenant Halfhyde, Captain Watkiss, and Admiral Daintree are under orders to round Cape Horn on a voyage from Chile to Britain to deliver traitor Sir Russell Savory to his fate. With them and the crew, on the flagship Halcyon, are a motley group of passengers. Their old enemy, Vice-Admiral von Merkatz is on their trail in hopes of freeing Savory.

The Bermuda Privateer (HC)

In 1796, Nicholas Fallon is captain of the schooner Sea Dog, a privateer that is fast, beautiful and deadly. Together with his best friend and first mate, Beauty McFarland, Fallon sails the Caribbean on a mission to take or destroy Britain’s enemies. When the Sea Dog’s owner, Ezra Somers, asks Fallon to seek out and destroy Wicked Jak Clayton, a pirate who has been preying on his ships, Fallon agrees.

Inferno

McBooks Press will publish the trade paperback edition of Inferno on October 1, 2017.

1807. Captain Sir Thomas Kydd resumes command of Tyger and is ordered to join a great armada on a desperate mission to pressure the Danish Crown Prince to turn his fleet over to Britain before Napoleon can seize it.

Halfhyde and the Chain Gangs

Murder and chicanery involving a consignment of gold bullion stalk St Vincent Halfhyde as he takes the square-rigged ship Glen Hallandale on govenment service from Devonport dockyard to Cape Town. His "cargo" consists of a large draft of convicts from Dartmoor Prison, volunteers for the fight against the Boers in South Africa—volunteers who travel in chain gangs and under strong escort or armed warders in Halfhyde's hastily converted holds.

Halfhyde Goes to War

The ill-fated gold bullion Halfyde inadvertently brought to South Africa in Halfhyde and the Chain Gangs is destined to play a further part in his turbulent career. The Boer War is dragging into a series of seemingly interminable sieges and the British army is floundering on unfamiliar terrain against the cunning of the Boer farmers.

The King's Coat

This auspicious beginning of a series has a very modern sensibility. In 1780, at the age of 17, our hero, bastard son of Sir Hugo Willoughby, is already a practicing rake in London. Caught in flagrante delicto with his [more-than-willing] half-sister, he is banished to the Navy in a nasty ploy by Sir Hugo to rob the boy of his inheritance.

Halfhyde on the Amazon

St Vincent Halfhyde, commanding the steamer Taronga Park, leaves Liverpool for the Amazon with a British diplomat on a mission to Brazil, where the German Emperor is believed to be establishing a naval base. The voyage is plagued with clashes of personalities, bad weather . . . and murder.

New Audiobook!

New Audiobook!

"Jacobson's debut is a wide-ranging historical tale that starts and ends with the fate of a married couple. Jan Kopernik, a major in the Polish cavalry, and his wife, Anna, a university professor in Krakow, end up on separate paths when the Germans invade Poland in 1939.

. . . Jacobson has written a novel that is suspenseful, rich in convincingly detailed incidents, and impeccably researched."—Library Journal

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A Brief History of Fighting Ships

Beginning Tuesday, April 25, 2017

All online orders for five or more books from www.mcbooks.com receive a free copy of David Davies's A Brief History of Fighting Ships: Ships of the Line and Napoleonic Sea Battles 1793–1815. No further action is required. You need not add this book to your shopping cart. Free book and paid books ship separately.

Winged Escort

As the grim years of the Second World War go by, the destruction of Allied shipping mounts. Out of the terrible loss of men and ships, the escort carrier is born. They were typically half the length and a third the displacement of larger fleet carriers. While they were slower, carried fewer planes and were less well armed and armored, escort carriers were cheaper and could be built quickly, which was their principal advantage.

Send a Gunboat

The orders from the Admiralty to the Captain were explicit. He was to take his ship to the small island of Santu, which lay under threat of invasion from the Communist mainland of China, and evacuate the British colony there.

The Flag of Freedom

1797: Britain stands alone against the forces of Revolutionary France. A victorious French Army, led by the youthful Napoleon Bonaparte, is poised to invade Britain. And in his country's darkest hour, Captain Nathan Peake finds himself imprisoned by his own side on the Rock of Gibraltar charged with treason.

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A Dawn Like Thunder

Burmese Coast, 1944 . . . After four years, the tide of war is turning in North Africa and Europe. The conflict in Southeast Asia, however, has reached new heights of savagery. The Special Operations mission off the Burmese coast requires volunteers. Both men with nothing to live for as well as men with everything to lose.