Another good book in this excellent series. Historically sound and temporally well oriented, it aptly describe some small successes in one of the British Empire's more costly wars. ( )

It is January 1855, and the Crimean War rages on. With the dreaded Crimean winter upon them, the allied troops may have to endure the bitter cold under canvas, waiting for a springtime siege of Sebastopol.

Desperate to put an end to this standoff, the British devise a dangerous plan, in which Phillip Hazard, the new commander of the steam-powered Huntress, must act as a spy. Under sealed orders, Hazard sails to Odessa, along with his brother Graham and his rough-and-ready crew from the Trojan. After smuggling himself ashore, Hazard is forced to rely on his duplicitous first lieutenant as his only means of escape from the enemy.

The fourth in the eight volume Philip Hazzard series sees our hero ordered to Odessa to spy upon the cities defences. The seige of Sebastapol has ground to a frozen halt in the winter of January 1985 and the allied forces are desperate to prevent supplies reaching the besieged city by way of Odessa before hostilities are properly recommenced in the coming Spring.

The following paragraphs are common to all 8 reviews I have posted for this series.

The novel is presented as Naval in nature; and the series as a successor to Hornblower. The action however, is mostly restricted to land operations, using the Naval volunteer brigade as the mechanism to relocate Hazzard to the centre of action. Navies of the world were at this point in history in transition from sail to steam. Remnants from the age of sail mixed with steam paddle and steam screw ships. It would have been interesting to gain some insight on this transition, but I was disappointed at the perfunctory (almost non-existent) nature of any such exposition.

Typical of the novels in this genre, the story contains an estranged romance and a villainous superior. The romance intrudes less on the narrative flow than does the villain. Indeed, the romance provides leverage for the story line's progress, whereas the villain intrudes unnecessarily.

The strength of the novel is in the meticulous historical detail presented: the editions I have read go so far as to present a detailed bibliography of the books consulted, coupled with historical notes. Copies of campaigns maps are also included as an appendix. I suppose it is not surprising that this should be so given that V A Stuart was something of a Historian, and supposedly an acknowledged expert of this period in British History.

What did surprise me was that under other pseudonyms, Stuart was the author of many romance novels, and was one of the founders of the Romance Novelist Association. Stuart's expertise in Military matters should not to be under-estimated. Her service in WWII (Burma, India and Australia) has provided a sound foundation for her work as a "military" , if not a particularly "naval" novelist. ( )