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Drake’s Republic of Cinnabar Navy (RCN) novels have frequently been described as Captain Horatio Hornblower adventures in space. Yet Drake himself credits their inspiration to Patrick O’Brian’s much-heralded Aubrey/Maturin sea tales, with Captain Daniel Leary standing in for Commodore Jack Aubrey, and Leary’s confidante and spy Adele Mundy filling the role of Aubrey’s sidekick, Stephen Maturin. In this eighth installment of the series, Leary and Mundy team up again for another go-round of space-opera-style exploits in a story Drake models after the Roman Empire’s Crisis of the Third Century. During a lull of peace between the Republic of Cinnabar and their longtime nemesis, the Alliance, Leary and Mundy are sent on a routine escort mission to the backwater planet of Zenobia. Yet the peace is soon to be disrupted by the neighboring Palmyrenes plotting a Zenobia invasion. As with most RCN novels, the highlights here are political intrigue, Adele’s wily spycraft, and the pyrotechnics-filled space battles between Leary’s sail-equipped starship and his latest foes. Drake fans won’t be disappointed. --Carl Hays

Product Description

Daniel Leary is Cinnabar's most successful space captain; his friend, Lady Adele Mundy, is its most efficient spy—but they've got their hands full this time as they face:

• A Cinnabar Senator furious at losing an election—and still powerful enough to make her anger deadly.
• The boy ruler of a star cluster who thinks he's a god—and who can sign the death warrants of even Cinnabar officials if a mad whimsy tells him to.
• A world of slaves and escaped slaves, where the most savage beasts in the jungle used to be human.
• An enemy base that could shrug off attack by powerful battlefleets—but which must fall to a single cruiser if Cinnabar is to survive.

            From palace to reeking jungle, from gunfights in grimy hangars to the flagship's bridge during a sprawling space battle, Leary and Mundy are in the thick of it again. Watch the galaxy explode—_IN_ THE STORMY RED SKY