"The box, skillfully fashioned from wood and with a pattern of stars inlaid on its side, was clearly very old.
Intrigued by its age and craftsmanship, David Molloy bought it at the car boot sale in a Glasgow school playground, an acquisition that led to a series of nightmares which grew to exert an increasing influence upon relationship with his partner and his life.
It would lead him into a quest into his ancestry and, in doing, alter his understandings and attitudes forever."
"It is the late autumn of 1854 and the steam gunboat Spartan, commanded by James Rutherford has returned to duty following the repair of her battle damage in Calcutta.
Another, though less powerful, Russian commerce raider is still at large in the China Sea, though as events follow their course, Rutherford is forced to confront the fact that this lesser antagonist might be a more potent adversary than he previously believed."
"It is the late autumn of 1854 and the steam gunboat Spartan, commanded by James Rutherford has returned to duty following the repair of her battle damage in Calcutta.
Another, though less powerful, Russian commerce raider is still at large in the China Sea, though as events follow their course, Rutherford is forced to confront the fact that this lesser antagonist might be a more potent adversary than he previously believed."
"A Gathering of Soldiers relates the story of Daniel Ryan, an Irish immigrant who has begun a new life in Georgia just as the events leading up to the momentous civil war in America have begun to unfold. The book describes his experiences upon enlisting with a group of his peers, in a north Georgia militia company, following Abraham Lincoln's first summons for troops to invade the southern states. The novel follows the progress of Ryan, and his volunteer comrades as they evolve into soldiers, from their first posting on garrison duty on the Savannah River estuary, before journeying to Virginia to take part in the manoeuvring and the bloody engagements of the peninsular campaign in the summer of 1862, all of which changes the lives and outlooks of the surviving boys forever."
"'A Season for Killing' is told from the perspective of Daniel Ryan, a corporal in Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Virginia in 1864 during the American Civil War, as the brutal campaign in the spring and summer of that year unfolds. Ryan, an Irish immigrant in a Georgian brigade, serves heroically in a succession of battles as the Confederate Army is forced back through Virginia to their capital city of Richmond. Ryan witnesses the steady decline of his Confederate Army, yet he fights on as best he can. What we find in this novel are the perennial issues of conflict, turmoil, futility and loss, contrasted with the finer human qualities of bravery, love and hope."
"The Rappahannock Line continues the story of Irish immigrant Daniel Ryan who serves in Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. As the year 1862 draws to its close, the powerful Union army gathers its strength on the Rappahannock River in Virginia to renew its advance on the Confederate capital. Lee's army confronts it there bringing on a further bloody collision.
Ryan and his comrades endure the Winter that follows the brutal battle of Fredericksburg, as the Confederate army suffers critical supply shortages, while, across the river, the enemy, under a new commander, reorganises and strengthens itself again for the Spring resumption of campaigning, which will test the skills of General Lee and the courage and resolve of his outnumbered soldiers as never before."
"It is early 1854 and war looms with Tsarist Russia. James Rutherford and his ship Spartan are transferred to Royal Navy service and given a role patrolling Oriental waters in search of a powerful enemy warship which seeks to prey upon allied shipping. Reluctant to be confined to such tedium, Rutherford adopts a more proactive approach but this will lead to grave risks for Spartan’s crew.
Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Scotland and began writing after a career in education. The Renegade is his sixteenth book and the fourth Spartan story. He is currently working on a fifth title."
"When Lieutenant James Rutherford of the Honourable East India Company is summoned to Government House in Calcutta, he has no inkling of what awaits him there. To his great surprise, he is offered command of the Spartan, a newly converted steam warship, receiving orders to proceed to sea to hunt a Chinese pirate, but, though those orders appear straightforward enough, they initiate a deadly sequence of events during which the hunter all too often is the quarry.
****
Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire in Scotland and began writing after a career in education. An Independent Command, set in the Far East in the mid-nineteenth century, is his thirteenth book. A sequel to it is currently in preparation."
"'A Season for Killing' is told from the perspective of Daniel Ryan, a corporal in Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Virginia in 1864 during the American Civil War, as the brutal campaign in the spring and summer of that year unfolds. Ryan, an Irish immigrant in a Georgian brigade, serves heroically in a succession of battles as the Confederate Army is forced back through Virginia to their capital city of Richmond. Ryan witnesses the steady decline of his Confederate Army, yet he fights on as best he can. What we find in this novel are the perennial issues of conflict, turmoil, futility and loss, contrasted with the finer human qualities of bravery, love and hope."
"When Lieutenant James Rutherford of the Honourable East India Company is summoned to Government House in Calcutta, he has no inkling of what awaits him there. To his great surprise, he is offered command of the Spartan, a newly converted steam warship, receiving orders to proceed to sea to hunt a Chinese pirate, but, though those orders appear straightforward enough, they initiate a deadly sequence of events during which the hunter all too often is the quarry.
****
Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire in Scotland and began writing after a career in education. An Independent Command, set in the Far East in the mid-nineteenth century, is his thirteenth book. A sequel to it is currently in preparation."
"It is 1861 and Thomas Grover has resigned from the US Navy to go with his native state of South Carolina which has left the Union. For two years his career in the new Confederate Navy is tedious and unrewarding. He is posted to Britain as a naval attaché, again denied his wish for active service, until he is transferred to Liverpool where he is offered command of a new warship. Grover must get to sea on the ship and see her armed and commissioned as CSS Palmetto, whose mission will be that of a predator, to range the oceans, seeking out and destroying American vessels wherever they are to be found."
"It is the spring of 1864 and the Confederate raider Palmetto is off the Philippines, pursuing her campaign against US shipping. For her captain, Thomas Grover there is much to consider, for with the ship’s previously sustained engine damage not fully repaired, he learns that these seas are now patrolled by a new Union warship that vastly overmatches his own ship. As the war turns increasingly against the south, Grover must redouble his efforts against the enemy, but the hidden threats facing him are as dangerous as the known ones.
About the author: Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire and began writing after a career in education. “Nothing Without Honour” is his eleventh book and continues the “Palmetto” series. He is currently working on a further title.
By the same author:
A Gathering of Soldiers
Hard Passage North
The Rappahannock Line
Mirage of Victory
The Bitterest Enemy
A Season for Killing
A Deepening Twilight
Bond of Blood
Palmetto
An Instrument of War"
