1663. West Mediterranean sea. On his third mission for king and country, Captain Matthew Quinton captures a Corsair pirate under the nose of a furious Maltese Knight the sinister Montnoir. But the crew's delight soon palls when the 'pirate' is unmasked as O'Dwyer, a renegade Irish adventurer with a fabulous yarn about a vast gold mine in the west African desert. Back at home, bad turns to worse when an avaricious King Charles II charges the young captain with accompanying O'Dwyer to Africa and locating the 'mountain of gold'. With little hope of success, and forced to leave behind a perilous family situation, Quinton sails for the Gambia. From the start his mission is dogged by misfortune, murder and sabotage . . . then he discovers that Montnoir is on the same trail. But who exactly are Montnoir's secret masters? As the inexperienced English captain and the wily Maltese Knight do battle in hellish conditions, plagued by fever, wild animals and a hostile local tribe, it becomes clear that more than their own lives are at stake. AUTHOR: J D Davies was born in Wales and now lives in Bedfordshire. He is the foremost expert on the seventeenth-century navy and recently published Pepys' Navy which won the 2009 Samuel Pepys Award. REVIEWS: 'J D Davies's depiction of Restoration England and the British navy is impeccable, his characters truly live and breathe, and the plot kept me in suspense . . . I could not recommend it more' - Edward Chupack, author of Silver THE QUINTON SERIES THUS FAR: 9781906964290 Gentleman Captain 9781906964269 The Mountain of Gold 9781908699268 The Blast that Tears the Skies 9781908699275 The Lion of Midnight