Chris Durbin has covered the Seven Years War over the span of 16 books, each focusing on one of two fictional captains in Britain's Royal Navy: Edward Carlisle, a Virginia-born naval veteran, and George Holbrooke, Carlisle's English-born protege who quickly comes into his own. This book, covering the last gasp of the war before a tenuous and temporary peace was broached, features Holbrooke on a mission to aid Portuguese forces (also aided by a pair of formidable British privateers backed by wealthy investors) in their attempted conquest of the Debatable Lands, a stretch of disputed land between Spanish and Portuguese territories along the Rio de la Plata, or River Plate, a sprawling South American waterway dominated by the Spanish colony of Buenos Aires.

Holbrooke and his crew must navigate the broad but treacherous river in their frigate Argonaut, where an old Spanish enemy awaits him in a far more powerful ship-of-the-line. And the Spanish forces there aren't about to roll over for the Anglo-Portuguese expedition sent against them.

Debatable Lands is not, perhaps, as action-packed as some earlier books in the series, but that's to be expected as the long war between England and France and their various allies grinds to an end. For Holbrooke and his crew, it's a last hurrah before they are inevitably decommissioned and cast ashore, no longer needed by His Majesty's navy. And certainly the Spanish captain, Don Ezequiel Mancebo, will not make things easy for them.

As sad as I am to see the Seven Years War come to an end, I'm happy to report Durbin's series is not likewise ending. This book concludes in 1763, and further hostilities between England and France are not far off. Even more promising is the growing discontent among North American colonists, who are only several years away from fighting for independence from the crown. That conflict, which likely will find aging captains (and good friends) Carlisle and Holbrooke on opposite sides, is ripe with potential for a writer as good as Durbin. (It should be noted that he has the credentials for the job. He is a retired British navy officer, and his wife is likewise retired from the U.S. Navy; together, they live in England.)

Durbin produces books in the Carlisle & Holbrooke series at a phenomenal rate, and I am already eager to see what the next one holds for our protagonists.

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