At heart, this is a novel about the events around the Battle of the Nile, which occurs around mid-book. Kydd meets Nelson a couple times, Renzi finally has the inevitable run-in with his father, and in the last pages Sidney Smith holds off Napoleon at Acre. But mostly Nelson chases the French fleet around the Mediterranean. Oh, yeah: Kydd’s sister, Cecelia, makes a brief appearance, mostly to fill us in on the impact the Battle of the Nile had in London.
We see the beginnings of Nelson’s affair with Lady Hamilton, too. In the process, we get a fine portrait of William Hamilton; probably the best passage in any Stockwin novel.
This short review was originally published on LibraryThing.