Barbary Coast pirates—the Saraceni—are capturing slaves and terrorizing fishing villages along the coast of Sicily. Ramage and his crew are sent to track them down before they can devastate another town.
Dudley Pope is well known both as the creator of the Ramage novels and as a distinguished naval historian. Pope falsified his age in order to enlist in the British Merchant Navy during World War II. In action, his ship was torpedoed and he spent 14 days at sea in an open lifeboat. After being discharged due to the injuries he received, he worked as the naval and defense correspondent at the London Daily News. He turned to writing fiction at the urging of C. S. Forester, who viewed Pope as his creative heir. Author of ten snn-fiction historical works as well as the 18 books in the Ramage series, Dudley Pope died in 1997.
