В тринадцатой книге серии Томасу Кидду доведется принять участие в одной из самых рискованных авантюр своего времени: рейде английской эскадры на Буэнос-Айрес. Англичане получают секретную информацию, что в испанских колониях в Южной Америке вспыхнул бунт. Они спешат воспользоваться выгодными обстоятельствами, направив на помощь повстанцам эскадру, а заодно намерен прибрать к рукам крупную партию испанского серебра. Но как и следовало ожидать в такой сложной экспедиции, не все развивается так, как планировалось…

During the Napoleonic Wars, Captain Thomas Kydd, aboard HMS L’Aurore, is assigned to the Caribbean and the Leeward Islands station. He is to concentrate his naval activities on the capture of French privateers who are attacking English merchant convoys. Soon he is ordered to join the Jamaica Squadron at Port Royal to protect valuable sugar cargo from landing in the hands of French privateers. He is ably assisted by his secretary, Nicholas Renzi, who also has a history (in previous books in this series) of spying on the French for the English government. Kydd is called to task to discover the location of a French base used to attack British shipping in the Caribbean islands

The greatest naval trial in the Georgian period is underway at Portsmouth with the court martial of Sir Home Popham, Captain Sir Thomas Kydd’s commanding officer in the doomed occupation of Buenos Aires. Kydd has some sympathy for Popham’s unauthorised action but his support for his former commander leaves him athwart some very influential people in the Admiralty.With his frigate L’Aurore unfit for sea, Kydd is given a commission that some hope will destroy his career. Tyger has recently mutinied but instead of having her company dispersed around the fleet as is customary, the ship is pressed into immediate service in the North Sea. Kydd faces a crew still under some malign influence.Enemies aboard and on the high seas are just the start of the problem. Soon he will have to take his untested and untrustworthy crew into the Baltic and there they will get entangled with Napoleon’s invasion of Prussia. The stakes are desperate, the task seemingly impossible and the French implacable. But the only way for Kydd to avoid disgrace is to gamble his reputation and crew on a crazy mission to snatch a Prussian division out of the jaws of Napoleon’s advancing army. Will he return home once more a hero, or himself face a court martial?