The Crimean War rages on. Determined to break the stalemate, the British decide to send a spy into Odessa. And who better for this perilous mission than Captain Phillip Hazard, newly promoted to command of the steam-powered Huntress and fluent in Russian? Hazard bravely takes on the task, but saddled with a surly first lieutenant whose previous captain died mysteriously and with his crew plagued by an unknown illness, Hazard soon finds he must depend on his own resourcefulness to survive. [Hazard] is a worthy successor to the Horatio Hornblower series, and make no bones about it. ― Publishers Weekly For historical accuracy, writing verve and skill, and pace of narrative, [Stuart] stands alone. ― El Paso Times Stuart tells a story so well, with such convincing detail, that Phillip Hazard may stand on the same proud deck as Horatio Hornblower. ― Ships Monthly The redoubtable Commander Hazard has won a permanent place in historical fiction and he places his author in the foremost ranks of the writers in this field. ― Yorkshire Gazette and Herald The author's command of the smallest detail of the period is impressive. A historical novel of scholarship. ― Yorkshire Post [Hazard] takes up precisely where Forester and Hornblower left off . . . and in many ways Phillip Horatio Hazard is a superior creation. ― El Paso Times V. A. Stuart wrote several military fiction series and numerous other novels under various pseudonyms. Her settings span history and the globe, from the Napoleonic Wars of Europe to India under the British Raj. Born in 1914, she was in Burma with the British Fourteenth Army, became a lieutenant, and was decorated with the Burma Star and the Pacific Star. Used Book in Good Condition