Pasha

L’Aurore has been ordered back to England.  Captain Thomas Kydd is sure that he is to be court martialed for his participation in the Buenos Aires affair.  Surprisingly, the port admiral at Portsmouth welcomes him with open arms.  However, orders await, commanding Kydd to report to London to meet with the First Lord of the Admiralty.

Arriving at the Admiralty, Kydd is shocked to find out that it is the king who has demanded his presence.  Later he is to meet the prime minister.  There he finds out that he is to be knighted.  What does this mean for his future?

Meanwhile, Kydd’s good friend, Nicholas Renzi, has also been to London and discovered that he is now a published author.  He has some considerable wealth as a result.  He then decides to confront his father, only to learn that his father has recently passed on, and Nicholas is now Lord Farndon.  As a result of all of this he decides that he can now propose to Cecilia, Kydd’s sister.

Not long after the wedding, Sir Thomas Kydd and L’ Aurore are sent to participate in the blockade of Cadiz.  Back in England, the new Lord Farndon is presented with an extraordinary opportunity.  He is to become a very special ambassador, and his first task will take him to Constantinople.

Not long after joining the blockade of Cadiz, Kydd is sent to join the Mediterranean fleet in order to extract the ambassador from Constantinople.  Acting on his own initiative, Kydd sails in to Constantinople only to find that the ambassador wants the fleet there as a show of force.  He thinks that the Turks have been too cosy with the French.  Before long, Kydd finds himself sitting on a powder keg.

Farndon arrives in Constantinople the day that L’ Aurore sails away with the ambassador.  What is he to do now?  And so begins a three sided chess game with the French, Turks and English playing.  It is a game, which could have dire consequences. Out in the Mediterranean, L’Aurore joined a large fleet that had orders to force the Dardanelles and if necessary bombard Constantinople. 

Will the fleet be able to bomb Constantinople?  How will Farndon get word of what the French are up to to the fleet?  Can he survive, being the only Englishman in Constantinople?  Author Julian Stockwin answers these questions in the dying pages of this historical novel.  A good read for fans of historical fiction.  It is actually based on some historical facts.