Alexander Kent Libros

The masterful true-crime account of the 1996 Centennial Olympic Park bombing that captured the world's attention, and Richard Jewell, the heroic security guard-turned-suspect at the heart of it all.

As 1794 draws to a close Richard Bolitho, commanding the old seventy-four-gun ship of the line Hyperion, leaves Plymouth to join a squadron blockading the rising power of Revolutionary France. After six months of repairs his ship is ready to fight again, but her company is mostly raw and untrained. Unfortunately, Bolitho finds himself under a commodore who is no match for the French admiral, Lequiller, whose powerful squadron uses guile and ruthless determination to elude him and vanish into the Atlantic. Hyperion, as part of a small British force, gives chase, the desperate voyage taking them from the Bay of Biscay's squall to the heat of the Caribbean - and for each mile sailed and every battle fought Bolitho finds himself being forced into the ever more demanding role of strategist and squadron commander.

Success to the Brave is the fifteenth Richard Bolitho story and chronologically it follows the events covered by A Tradition of Victory. In the little sixty-four-gun Achates Bolitho sails West for Boston, and thence to the Caribbean where he must hand over the island of San Felipe to the French.

In March of 1814, Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho returns to England. The bitter and inconclusive war with the United States has not yet ended, but news of Napoleon's defeat and abdication has stunned a navy and a nation bled by years of European conflict. Victory has been the impossible dream, and now, for Bolitho, a vision of the future and a more personal peace seems attainable. He remains, however, an admiral of England, and an unsympathetic Admiralty dispatches him to Malta. Perhaps this appointment is a compliment, perhaps a malicious ploy to keep him from the woman he loves and the freedom he craves. He cannot know, but the voice of duty speaks more insistently even than the voice of the heart, and in this familiar sea where both glory and tragedy have touched his life, Bolitho must confront the future, the renaissance of a hated tyrant, and the fufillument of destiny.

As the French enter the American War of Independence in earnest, young Richard Bolitho is given his first command, "Sparrow" - a fast, well-armed fighting sloop. At last he has the chance to prove his abilities as a junior captain. But he faces other challenges too.

HISTORICAL FICTION. Colours Aloft!, the sixteenth Richard Bolitho novel, bears all the hallmarks of its best-selling predecessors. September 1803 Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho finds himself the new master of the Argonaute, a French flagship taken in battle. With the Peace of Armiens in ruins, he must leave the safety of Falmouth. What lies ahead is the grim reality of war at close quarters - where Bolitho who will be called upon to anticipate the overall intention of the French fleet. But the battle has also become a personal vendetta between himself and the French admiral who formerly sailed the Argonaute. Bolitho and his men are driven to a final rendezvous where no quarter is asked or given.

In this, the long awaited conclusion of Alexander Kent's midshipman trilogy, the new year of 1774 seems to offer Richard Bolitho and his friend Martyn Dancer the culmination of a dream.

Newly appointed Rear Admiral Richard Bolitho soon realizes that his experience, gained in the line of battle, has ill-prepared him for the intricate manoeuvers of politics during the hardship of blockade duty in the Baltic.

It is 1784, and His Majesty's frigate "Undine" sets sail from Spithead for India. Europe may be at peace, but in colonial waters the promises of statesmen count for little and the bloody struggle for supremacy goes on. Richard Bolitho undertakes a task that would be better handled by a squadron.

June 1793, Gibraltar : The gathering might of revolutionary France prepares to engulf Europe in another bloody war. As in the past, Britain will stand or fall by the fighting power of her fleet. For Richard Bolitho, the renewal of hostilities means a fresh command and the chance of action after long months of inactivity. However, his mission to support Lord Hood in the monarchist-inspired occupation of Toulon has gone awry. Bolitho and the crew of the Hyperion are trapped by the French near a dry Mediterranean island. The great ship-of-the-line's battered hull begins to groan as her sails snap in the hot wind.