Fleming Community Library

With a ship to call his own at last, Royal Navy Lieutenant St Vincent Halfhyde sails for the Dardanelles in command of the little torpedo-boat Vendetta, part of a flotilla sent to rescue a Britsih sailing-ship unlawfully detained by the Russians. Unfortunately, Halfhyde's first command comes complete with a pompous flotilla captain in love with his own voice, and the looming threat of the irascible Admiral Prince Gorsinski. Cutting out the sailing-ship...

"Things are looking bad for disgraced spy August Drummond. In emotional free fall after the death of his wife, fired for a series of unprecedented security breaches... and now his neighbor on the flight to Istanbul won't stop talking. The only thing keeping him sane is the hunch that there's something not quite right about the nervous young man several rows ahead - a hunch that is confirmed when August watches him throw away directions to an old European...

"The naked body of an Englishwoman washes up in Ottoman Istanbul wearing a pendant with the sultan's seal. This debut novel captures the political and social upheavals of the waning Ottoman Empire. The murder of an English governess for the royal harem stirs up a crisis at the palace and at the British embassy. The death resembles the murder by strangulation of another English governess, a crime that was never solved. But were these political murders...