It is the dawn of the Eighteenth Century. At the farthest edges of the known world, the mighty East India Trading Company suffers catastrophic losses from pirates on the high seas. After four years away from service, master mariner Sir Hal Courtney prepares for his latest and most dangerous voyage – a death or glory mission in the name of Empire and the crown.

Jake Barton, a tough, hard-punching engineer from Texas, and Gareth Swales, a stylish old-Etonlan gun-runner down on his luck, make a lucrative arms deal with an Ethiopian prince, and dare to challenge the international blockade on land and sea to deliver a consignment of ancient and decrepit armoured cars to his beleaguered countrymen.

From one of the world’s most celebrated and bestselling novelists comes an epic adventure in the spirit and tradition of Monsoon and Blue Horizon. It is 1884, and in the Sudan, decades of brutal misgovernment by the ruling Egyptian Khedive in Cairo precipitates a bloody rebellion and Holy War. The charismatic new religious leader, the Mahdi or 'Expected One', has gathered his forces of Arab warlords in preparation for a siege on the city of Khartoum. The British are forced to intervene to protect their national interests and to attempt to rescue the hundreds of British subjects.

Young David Morgan, gifted heir apparent to a South African fortune, rebels against the boardroom future mapped out for him with sickening predictability by his family. Drawn to the sky as though to his natural element, he trains to become a brilliant jet pilot and, fleeing from his home and all it stands for, sets out to make his own life.

'Your unquestioning obedience. You will be my man.' Such is Manfred's demand when he offers Rod Ironsides the general managership of the Sonder Ditch gold mine.

For Rod, ambitious and hard-living but totally gripped by the life of the mine, it is the chance of a lifetime. Manfred Steyner is neurotic and ruthless, a compulsive gambler who treats people as counters in a private game and his beautiful, frustrated wife Terry as a social prop and source of cash.