Before The Wind: Loss of Valiant

Before the Wind >The war with France has followed Captain James Pike across the Mediterranean, and this time it leads him to the one place no captain wants to linger: a hostile coast, watched and watching in return. Off Alexandria, French ships gather in numbers no ordinary garrison could explain. Pike's orders are simple. Watch, count, report. But nothing about this station stays simple for long. A night attack from the dark water. A becalming that leaves his ship helpless and exposed. A storm that very nearly finishes what the French cannot. And when Pike finally turns for home, one last French frigate stands between him and Gibraltar; a ship he cannot outrun, cannot outgun, and will not surrender to. What follows will cost him his ship. It will not cost him his victory. Sharp with the salt and smoke of the age of fighting sail, Before the Wind: The Loss of Valiant is a story of duty carried past its breaking point. It tells of a captain who demands everything of his crew because he demands more of himself, and of the razor's width between disaster and glory that every command must eventually cross. For readers of Patrick O'Brian and C.S. Forester, The Loss of Valiant continues the voyage begun in Book One, a fresh trial by fire for Captain Pike and the men who serve under him.