£5.00 + P & P

HALFHYDE and the FLEET REVIEW

1st. 1991

George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Limited

London

ISBN 0 297 84030 4

A blue cloth bound book with silver lettering to the spine in Near Fine condition in a Near Fine unclipped dust wrapper.

The author

Born in 1920 his obituary appeared in the Daily Telegraph 26.07.96. He joined the Royal Navy as a signalman in 1939 and served throughout the Second World War in a variety of ships, including the cruiser HMS Vindictive, the ocean boarding vessel LARGS, and the escort carrier HMS RAVAGER, ending the war as a lieutenant, RNVR. His first novel was published in 1957. He went on to become one of the fifty most read authors of the British lending library system, annually qualifying for the £6,000 maximum payable sum for Public Lending Rights.

Blurb

For the important occasion of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee review of the British Fleet, Half hyde is to be temporarily separated from his gamine Australian companion, Miss Victoria Penn, not that she takes this Admiralty order without demur.
No longer on the active list of the Royal Navy, Captain St Vincent Halfhyde has been given a commission in the Royal Naval Reserve. He has his duties to Her Majesty even when temporary recall to the Navy means he is unable to use his ship, the Taronga Park, for its proper purpose, which is to carry cargoes around the world and of course at the same time to provide a living for Victoria and himself.
The assignment is a curious one .. . concerning the irascible, unpredictable and very British Admiral Watkiss, who entered Chilean service as their naval Commander-in-Chief when no longer required by the Royal Navy. Halfhyde and the Admiral know each other of old, and only recently Watkiss had required rescuing from his disillusioned Chilean superiors. Now a coup has returned the Admiral to favour and he is in command of the Chilean battleship Almirante Smith, proceeding to Portsmouth as Chilean representative at the review. But Watkiss is not loved by all, and Halfhyde's almost impossible brief— with the attendant risks of murder and mayhem — is to keep him safe and out of trouble during Her Majesty's presence at Spithead off the Isle of Wight.

jacket illustration by Rodger Towers

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