Books published by publisher Mcbooks Press

In the eighth book of this popular series, Thomas Kydd and Nicholas Renzi return to England in 1803 after tumultuous episodes on the other side of the world to find England in peril of starvation and bankruptcy. Kydd is placed back in command of his beloved vessel, Teazer, but he barely has time to prep her for the sea when he is sent on an urgent mission. Smugglers, enemy privateers, and treacherous sea conditions await Kydd on his journey to northern France on the eve of war, but equally worrisome events are occurring ashore. A growing attachment to the admiral's daughter curbs Kydd's blissful reunion with Teazer and he is forced to make a terrible decision that may cause the end of his friendship with Renzi—or the end of his naval career.

As the grim years of the Second World War go by, the destruction of Allied shipping mounts. Out of the terrible loss of men and ships, the escort carrier is born. They were typically half the length and a third the displacement of larger fleet carriers. While they were slower, carried fewer planes, and were less well armed and armored, escort carriers were cheaper and could be built quickly, which was their principal advantage. At twenty-six, fighter pilot Tim Rowan, RNVR, is already a veteran of many campaigns. Now he joins the new, American-made escort (or "jeep") carrier HMS Growler, the flagship of a task force protecting Allied convoys sailing the Arctic route to supply Soviet Russia. The service in the Arctic is harrowing, and not all of Rowan's adversaries are German. In late 1944, Growler is transferred to the Indian Ocean and faces the Kamikaze, experiencing vicious onslaughts.

In which, without really intending to, Otto Prohaska becomes official war hero no. 27 of the Habsburg empire. "A retro techno-adventure story that falls somewhere between Tom Clancy and Patrick O'Brian... top notch military fiction with a literary flair." (Publishers Weekly) In the spring of 1915, a young Austro-Czech naval lieutenant Ottokar Prohaska finds himself posted to the minuscule Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Submarine Service in the Adriatic port of Pola. In some trepidation at first, because he has no experience whatever of submarines, his fears are soon set at rest when he discovers that nobody else has either: least of all his superiors. There follow three and a half years of desperate World War One adventures fighting for the House of Habsburg aboard primitive, ill-equipped vessels, contending not just with exploding lavatories and the transport of Libyan racing camels but with a crew drawn from a dozen different nationalities-and a decaying imperial bureaucracy which often seems to be even more of an enemy than the British, the French, the Italians and the sea itself. After surmounting all this to become - accidentally - Austria Hungary's leading U-boat commander and a holder of its highest military decoration, the closing months of 1918 see him and his crew returning aboard a damaged boat from the shores of Palestine, only to find that the homeland they have fought for so doggedly over the previous four years is now in the final stages of collapse, and that they themselves are effectively stateless persons; sailors without a navy returning to a country which no longer has a coastline. "Fresh, vivid, and without peer in the current market." (Booklist) "Stark realism and finely crafted humor.... Biggins's use of narration, his thorough knowledge of the Adriatic, and good technical detail make this... compelling reading." (Library Journal)

In this ironic, hilarious, and poignant story, Otto Prohaska is a submarine captain serving the almost-landlocked Austro-Hungarian Empire. He faces a host of unlikely circumstances, from petrol poisoning to exploding lavatories to trigger-happy Turks. All signs point to the total collapse of the bloated empire he serves, but Otto refuses to abandon the Habsburgs in their hour of need.

After the murder of his father, Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Blackwood, Ross Blackwood finds himself assigned to the Far East, taking on rebels and illegal-arms dealers in Hong Kong and Malaysia. Along the way he meets another Blackwood, his cousin Steve, who has made a life for himself in the Corp, as an explosives expert. The two Blackwoods uphold the honor of their family and their chosen profession while negotiating the fallout of Britain's post-colonial politics.

In this ironic, hilarious, and poignant story, Otto Prohaska is a submarine captain serving the almost-landlocked Austro-Hungarian Empire. He faces a host of unlikely circumstances, from petrol poisoning to exploding lavatories to trigger-happy Turks. All signs point to the total collapse of the bloated empire he serves, but Otto refuses to abandon the Habsburgs in their hour of need.