Rules of War

by Iain Gale Book 2 in the Jack Steel series.

First published 2008

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3.9(389)

In 1706 Jack Steel returns to Marlborough’s army as the War of the Spanish Succession spreads across the Low Countries. The victory at Ramillies opens new territory to the Allies, but occupation brings its own hazards: divided loyalties, competing interests and troops whose discipline is tested far from the formal battlefield.

Steel is sent on a mission towards besieged Ostend, where military intelligence, local cooperation and deception matter as much as musketry. Forced to work undercover while facing collaborators, an old enemy and a renegade French pirate, he discovers that the rules governing soldiers in battle offer little protection in a campaign built on secrecy and betrayal.