"The Blooding of the Guns" sees Everard transferred to a destroyer, where his native ability has a chance to shine through. "I suspect you may have been partially misinformed. This officer is neither wholly ignorant nor pathologically insubordinate. Only time will tell us whether or not he's lazy..." Three Everards fight at the battle of Jutland - Nick in his destroyer, his brother David in a cruiser, and his uncle Hugh as captain of the battleship Nile. This triple view gives us an outstanding three-dimensional experience of the greatest naval battle ever fought, which fills in a lot of the blanks in the history books.

"Sixty Minutes for St George" is set against the background of the "Dover Patrol" in 1917-18, culminating in the famous assault on Zeebrugge. Once again Nick Everard is climbing the greasy pole of command, now getting some recognition from senior officers as well as the routine discouragement from unimaginative captains. The amazing action scenes are nicely blended with vignettes of life ashore, from the riotous bars of Dover to Mullbergh, the home of Nick's baronet father and abused stepmother.

"Patrol to the Golden Horn" has everything a lover of naval novels could wish for - an exciting plot, lots of action, character development, and so much closely-observed detail that you really feel you are breathing the choking, stinking air of that apparently doomed sub. Set in and around the Bosphorus, shortly after the infamous Gallipoli landings, this book revolves around the German battlecruiser Goeben and British attempts to neutralise its threat.

"Storm Force to Narvik" is the most upbeat of the three novels in this collection (from a British point of view). After a period of retirement between the wars, Nick has been given command of a destroyer and sent to patrol the icy seas off Norway. The book opens with a sharp encounter with a big German cruiser, in which Nick's ship is cruelly damaged and her companion destroyer sunk. Forced to limp into a fjord in search of repair facilities, she is overtaken by the German invasion - but with help from an unexpected quarter, she rises splendidly from the ashes. Meanwhile, Nick's son Paul - an ordinary seaman on another destroyer - witnesses the first battle of Narvik first-hand. Battleship fans will be glad to know that HMS Warspite's exploit is described in loving detail.

"Last Lift from Crete" tells the heartbreaking story of how British forces were driven out of Greece and then Crete by the overwhelming power of the German armed forces - especially the Luftwaffe. Forced to evacuate as many "pongoes" as possible from the doomed island, the Royal Navy took dreadful losses from German air power, including the dreaded Junkers 87 "Stuka" dive-bombers. Naturally, Nick and his son Jack are in the thick of it. Look for the cameo appearance by Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham (ABC to his men).

In "All the Drowning Seas", the melancholy rises to a crescendo. The good news is that Nick has risen to command a cruiser. The bad news is that it forms part of the ill-fated, heterogenous collection of ships under the command of the Dutch Admiral Doorman, which tries to fend off the Japanese threat to Java. Meanwhile, Paul (who has decided to become a submariner) is on the way to Malta aboard a merchant ship, as part of a convoy modelled on the real-life Operation Pedestal.

While glorious triumphs are few and far between, this book gives an unparalleled insight into the Royal Navy's (and the Merchant Navy's) ability to defend seemingly hopeless positions, never admitting defeat. It captures the essence of war at sea.