When Michael Molloy's Peter Raven Under Fire begins, the eponymous hero is a 13-year-old midshipman in 1800 who has been assigned to HMS Torren, a 110-gun frigate, with his uncle Captain Arthur Benchley in command and the mysterious Commodore Beaumont aboard as a passenger. The ship initially serves as a blockade vessel off Brest, then -- after one bold action in which Peter is badly wounded -- sets sail for Jamaica to defend shipping in the West Indies from French privateers. En route, however, things go awry for both ship and crew.

The book begins well, but begins to fall apart midway when the usual rivalry between the British and French is superseded by Count Vallon, an over-the-top James Bond villain with a secret James Bond villain's evil lair on a Caribbean island and a secret plan to buy the "throne" of Louisiana from Napoleon with a vast cache of stolen gold.

Spoiler: Vallon's "impregnable" fortress proves all too pregnable in the end. It isn't even slightly challenging for our heroes, who have at their disposal a save-the-day MacGuffin worthy of Q himself. Of course, the climax involves a one-on-one face-off between the hero and villain. End spoiler.

The story also suffers somewhat because Molloy doesn't seem sure what the words "frigate" and "commodore" mean -- anyone who's read even a few books set at sea could have told him that frigates didn't carry anything close to 100 guns, and commodores were squadron leaders, not spies -- and he erroneously believes that "pirate" and "privateer" are synonymous. He even gives his young commodore the unbelievable backstory of having destroyed two French ships of the line with a single frigate at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, which is ludicrous.

There is also the ongoing story of Lucy Cosgrove, a Hudson Valley girl several years Peter's senior, who flees her New York City school because it's too proper and constrictive for her tastes, then ends up instead in Paris with her proper and restrictive aunt, where she becomes the toast of the city and impresses both Napoleon and Josephine Bonaparte with her charm and marksmanship. Her narrative doesn't intersect with Peter's until very late in the book; for most of the novel's 500-plus pages, her unrelated chapters feel intrusive into the plot. When they do connect, she promptly wins the love of both Commodore Beaumont and Count Vallon, both of whom promptly propose marriage. Although one of her suitors is a hero and the other's a villain, Lucy cannot decide between them for the longest time, which doesn't say much for her taste in men. Ultimately, the story wouldn't have suffered much if she and her romantic triangle subplot had been left out altogether.

The "under fire" portion of the book's title might lead readers to expect plenty of naval engagements, but there's not a lot of ship-on-ship action here. Most of the book is spent in spycraft, and the story drags in parts that are more concerned with courtly dances and the latest Paris fashions than the progress of the ongoing war between England and France.

Molloy is an able wordsmith, but he should have done more research before writing this particular piece of historical fiction. Although intended for young-adult readers, the book deserved a more believable storyline, and the characters deserved a more plausible plot. There is at least one sequel in Peter Raven's saga, but I think I'd rather spend my time with an author who's more careful with his work.