Sam Bandy, who was protagonist Bliven Putnam's best friend in James L. Haley's The Shores of Tripoli, has left the American naval service behind after their thrilling exploits along the Barbary Coast and now prospers as a South Carolina trader. When A Darker Sea begins, Bandy is concluding some profitable business in Boston before sailing to his home port of Charleston, South Carolina, where his wife and children await him.

Unfortunately, his ship is stopped at sea by a British warship, the captain of which confiscates both ship and cargo and presses several of the crew -- including Bandy, who is mistaken for a Canadian deserter. Unable to prove his identity, Bandy spends a miserable year at sea, serving against his will as a lowly sailor in the British navy.

It is but one example of the predations on U.S. ships that leads the fledgling nation to declare a new war against Britain in 1812. Putnam, who has been relaxing on his family farm in Connecticut with his wife and parents, is recalled to active duty. Although promised his own ship to command, he's immediately called to Washington, D.C., to confer with a couple of top naval commanders and President James Madison about the current state of the navy and the best course of action to take when pitting the small American navy against its vastly larger British counterpart. (Why exactly a mere lieutenant, newly promoted to master commandant, is needed for strategizing is never made entirely clear. But Putnam's presence at the meeting, as well as his in-depth analysis of the navy's strengths and weaknesses in later pages, gives readers a much clearer understanding of the circumstances and the odds facing the young republic at the time.)

Before traveling to South Carolina to take command of the 20-gun brig USS Tempest, Putnam is first dispatched to Boston to recruit sailors and ends up sailing with Captain Isaac Hull on the mighty USS Constitution, ultimately participating in the heavy frigate's famous encounter with the British ship HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia -- a decisive battle on Aug. 19, 1812, that earned the Constitution its nickname Old Ironsides.

It isn't until page 254 (of a 380-page book) that Putnam and Tempest finally sail out of Charleston's harbor. Unfortunately for Putnam and his crew, it isn't long until they run afoul of HMS Java, a British frigate far superior to poor Tempest. On the other hand, Constitution is once again in the vicinity.

I'll leave it to the historians who are reading this to deduce what happens next. For those who are unfamiliar with the Constitution's meeting with Java off the coast of Brazil on Dec. 29, 1812, you're in for a treat. (I should note that Haley plays around a bit with some historic details for the novel. While he correctly places Captain William Bainbridge in command of the Constitution for this encounter, he replaces the Java's Captain Henry Lambert with the fictional (and more villainous) Captain Arthur Kington, Putnam's nemesis from the previous book in the series.

Both naval battles were pivotal points in the war, boosting American morale and shocking the seemingly unbeatable Royal Navy. In fact, the British losses convinced the admiralty to order its captains to avoid one-on-one entanglements with tough American heavy frigates altogether.

The story drags a bit, particularly during several long letters home or to officials in Washington, as well as a few interludes in Connecticut with Putnam's wife, parents, mother-in-law, preacher, preacher's family and a visiting native from the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). But, while these sections do bog things down a bit, they never slow the action too much before readers are back at sea with Putnam for a closeup view of two historic naval battles that reshaped naval dominance and certainly affected the course of the war.

The next book in the series, The Devil in Paradise, jumps ahead a few years and takes Putnam to Honolulu. While I have some passing knowledge of the Barbary War and the War of 1812, this Pacific adventure is a piece of history unfamiliar to me ... so I look forward to sailing along with Putnam and learning more about it.