This is the fourth in Chris Durbin’s Carlisle and Holbrooke naval adventures set during the Seven Years War (so half a century before the Napoleonic era milieu of most age-of-sail stories) and the author has really hit his stride. What started off as workmanlike but nautically plausible and engaging stories with likeable characters is in danger of becoming something really quite exceptional through Durbin’s increasing command of the language: he is approaching the sort of bell-like clarity of expression that very few writers achieve. I very much look forward to reading the next in the series.