Birds of Prey

The southern African coast, 1667. Sir Francis Courtney, his son Hal and the crew of the Lady Edwina operate under licence against Dutch shipping during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The capture of a valuable East India Company vessel appears to promise ransom and profit. The setting reflects the final phase of the Second Anglo-Dutch War and the importance of the Cape route to the Dutch East India Company’s Asian trade.

Betrayal turns the privateering voyage into imprisonment, escape and a struggle for command. The novel uses the naval war, Dutch colonial power and the Cape sea route to show the narrow boundary between legal privateering and piracy. Hal’s education begins when legal authority collapses, forcing him to distinguish loyalty from obedience and command from the possession of a royal commission.