Captain Nathan Peake has no war to fight when The Sea of Silence begins. Peake and his first lieutenant, Tully, are sailing home as passengers on an English packet after their adventures in the Far East -- but little do they know the world has changed in their absence.

England and France are suddenly at peace, although Peake learns this too late to save a satchel of letters and reports from a watery grave. When a large French vessel heaves into view and seems likely to overtake the English packet on which he and his erstwhile sailing master, Tully, are returning home, Peake sacrifices his papers -- which might have furthered his career -- to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

Without prospects, Peake is fortunate enough to run into an old friend, Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, who invites him to his country estate, where Sir William and Lady Emma Hamilton are also staying (to great scandal), and where Peake runs into Gilbert Imlay, a duplicitous American with whom Peake has had unsavory dealings in the past. Peake is inclined to refuse Imlay's offer of a command of a ship running guns to rebels on Hispaniola, in a scheme endorsed by U.S. President Thomas Jefferson to help destabilize the French grip on the valuable sugar-producing island -- the peace between nations only goes so far, it seems -- but circumstances arise that encourage his absence from England for the immediate future, and so he accepts.

Again, things don't go entirely to plan, and Peake finds himself ashore for several months in the West Indies, a companion and not-so-secret lover of Pauline Leclerc (nee Bonaparte), Napoleon's sister and wife to General Charles-Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc, whose mission it is to put down the rebellion and forge a new French empire in the west.

Nathan Peake remains an intriguing character, but The Sea of Silence is probably the least ambitious chapter in his adventures to date. The book has been thoroughly researched by author Seth Hunter (aka Paul Bryers) and benefits from a detailed perspective on history, with the inclusion of several historical figures besides Nelson and Imlay, the Hamiltons and Pauline Bonaparte. However, there is very little action in this novel, and consequently the narrative drags through pages filled with a lot of waiting, sailing peacefully and biding time.

The next book in the series is titled Trafalgar, however, so I have high hopes the level of action is about to jump a few notches.