DAVID MCDINE SERIES:

[Lieutenant Oliver Anson 02] - Strike the Red Flag

[Lieutenant Oliver Anson 02] - Strike the Red Flag

David McDine

Fiction / Historical / Historical Fiction

Red flags flutter at the mastheads of the Channel Fleet ships gathered at the Spithead anchorage. It is 1797, across the calm waters of the Solent the great naval base of Portsmouth lies impotent. Worse, unrest is spreading – to Plymouth, backdrop to Francis Drake’s Armada heroics two centuries earlier, and to the Nore, the great anchorage at the gateway to London. To the downtrodden sailors whose pay has not been increased for a hundred years and who endure a poor diet, harsh punishments and lack of shore leave, it is time to strike for better pay and conditions. But, according to the rigid Articles of War, akin to holy writ on board His Majesty’s ships, it is mutiny. And at a time when Britain is at war with Revolutionary France and threatened with invasion, the nation is plunged into grave peril. Young Lieutenant Oliver Anson, a distant relative of the legendary circumnavigator Admiral George Anson, is keenly awaiting transfer to duties aboard a frigate in the Mediterranean. Any ideas of idleness while he waits are swept aside when he is ordered to travel to Portsmouth on a mysterious mission. What are the contents of the papers he is to deliver personally to the flag officer there? Who among his fellow travellers on the express Royal Mail coach would try to steal them? How does he survive a more dangerous attack after being despatched to the Nore on a further secret assignment? David McDine’s Strike the Red Flag skilfully uses actual events in the Royal Navy’s history as the backdrop to some great swashbuckling fiction which remains true to social history while examining the idea of duty and the loneliness of command. His knowledge and evocation of the period is impressive, and his pitch-perfect phrasing recreates a fascinating world now lost to us. David McDine, OBE , is a former Admiralty information officer, Royal Navy Reserve officer and Deputy Lieutenant of Kent, and the author of Unconquered: The Story of Kent and its Lieutenancy. He also wrote The Normandy Privateer , another naval adventure featuring Lieutenant Oliver Anson, of which Strike the Red Flag is a prequel.   
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The Normandy Privateer

The Normandy Privateer

David McDine

Fiction / Historical / Historical Fiction

England. 1800s. The family of a young Royal Navy officer killed in action on a mission to capture a French privateer in 1798 install a memorial tablet in their church to commemorate his life and service to King and country. Lieutenant Oliver Anson, a distant relative of the illustrious circumnavigator George Anson and the younger son of a Kent clergyman, led the raid bidding to capture the gun brig Égalité hiding in a small Normandy harbour. But when it all goes wrong, Anson is felled by a musket ball in the head and is among the dead and wounded left ashore after his shipmates seek the refuge of their ship HMS Phryne. Only – and despite official newspaper reports to the contrary – the less-than-god-fearing Anson turns out not to be dead at all but very much alive, and stuns even fellow seamen with his miraculous resurrection. It is, however, far from plain sailing for the prisoners to escape from behind enemy lines and get back across the Channel. And the resourceful and ambitious Anson is then dealt a hammer blow by the admiralty when he is later denied a new sea-going appointment. Instead his future is to be an unattractive-looking, land-based role with the Sea Fencibles – tasked with foiling any potential French invasion attempt along the Kent coastline. Perhaps worse, sea rover Anson finds himself falling into the clutches of a local bigwig’s voluptuous and determined daughter who is desperate to find a husband… The Normandy Privateer charts the ups and downs of Lieutenant Anson and shines a poignant light on the loneliness and responsibilities of command. Praise for David McDine ‘An enlightening historical thriller.’ – Thomas Waugh David McDine OBE, is a former Deputy Lieutenant of Kent and a former Royal Navy Reserve officer and Admiralty information officer. He is also the author of Unconquered: The Story of Kent and its Lieutenancy . The Five Horseshoes , his debut novel in the Animal Man series, is sure to appeal to fans of Tom Sharpe, Alexander McCall Smith, PG Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh. **
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The Five Horseshoes

The Five Horseshoes

David McDine

Fiction / Historical / Historical Fiction

The Five Horseshoes is a light-hearted, funny novella introducing the off-beat characters and eccentricities of village life that readers will meet again in the The Animal Man, the first of David McDine’s upcoming trilogy. It is sure to appeal to fans of Tom Sharpe, Alexander McCall Smith, and P.G. Wodehouse.Spirits are low at the village pub. With takings down, publicans Horace and Glad fear their dream of a Spanish package holiday may never come true. In the early 1960s what passes for excitement hereabouts is the half-yearly livestock sale behind the pub – and Glad posing as Boudicca for the Women’s Institute calendar. Local reporter Des Crow is suffering a lean patch too, so they come up with a stunt aimed at grabbing headlines and boosting trade.But plans go awry when the cricketing vicar, Alf the village bobby, and old Frank the poacher become involved.The Five Horseshoes is a light-hearted, funny novella introducing the off-beat characters and eccentricities of village life that readers will meet again in the The Animal Man, the first of David McDine’s upcoming trilogy. It is sure to appeal to fans of Tom Sharpe, Alexander McCall Smith, and P.G. Wodehouse.
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