The Contraband Shore

1787. Captain Edward Brazier, recently paid off from his frigate and comfortably off with prize money, he is headed to Deal to propose marriage to the young and lovely widow Betsey Langridge. He must navigate the bustle of the town''snarrow streets that are busy with legal, illicit and depraved business flowingfrom and around the ships at dock. But all does not go well; between Betsy''s brother and guardian Henry Tulkington prohibiting the match, and Brazier marked out for trouble by a local smuggling gang, his plans are in disarray. And when it slowly emerges that there may have been a decades old injustice closer to home, Brazier is caught up in more than he''d bargained for.

Born in Edinburgh in 1944, David Donachie has had a variety of jobs, including selling everything from business machines to soap. He has always had an abiding interest in the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The author of a number of bestselling books, he now lives in Deal, Kent with his wife, the novelist Sarah Grazebrook and their two children.