In the Hour of Victory

February 10, 2014
Willis (The Fighting Temerarie), one of the world’s most prolific maritime historians, delivers an authoritative and insightful account of the British Navy at the height of its power, 1794–1806—or which Willis aptly calls “a veritable golden age of British naval success.” The book’s central point of interest is the collection of letters Willis miraculously found stowed away in the dank and dusty corners of the British Library. In these forgotten dispatches are the first reports sent home recounting in detail Britain’s most famous battles at sea—The Glorious First of June, Nelson’s victories at the Nile and Trafalgar, and other “significant naval battles of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.” Willis not only includes full transcripts—with occasional photos of the original letters—but also offers an outline of battles at the outset of each chapter, summaries of the letters’ contents (some of which prove challenging), and insightful analysis. This elucidating history will be especially of interest to passionate enthusiasts, but certainly accessible and intriguing to the general reader. Illus. Agent: Georgina Capel, Capel & Land (U.K.).

January 6, 2014
The explosive conclusion to McKinty’s Troubles trilogy (after 2013’s I Hear the Sirens in the Street) combines an IRA thriller with a locked-room mystery. By late 1983, Sean Duffy has fallen on hard times. Drummed out of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, he has a chance at redemption when MI5 literally comes knocking at his door. MI5 offers Sean back his rank of detective inspector if he will find an IRA bomb maker, Dermot McCann, who broke out of prison and then trained in a Libyan camp before disappearing. Dermot’s ex-mother-in-law, Mary Fitzpatrick, agrees to reveal Dermot’s location if Sean will investigate her daughter Lizzie’s death, which the previous investigating officers were certain was an accident, because, after all, Lizzie was alone in a locked pub when she died. Though it’s the end of the trilogy, readers will hope that this won’t be the last they see of Sean Duffy. Agent: Bob Mecoy, Creative Book Services.