Long a fan of James Nelson's various nautical fiction, mostly set before and during the American Revolution and Civil War, I was pleasantly surprised to pick up the first volume of his Viking saga, Fin Gall in 2021. It has less to do than ships and sailing than his other books, although certainly his Vikings spend plenty of time on their fearsome longships. But the focus is on a band of warriors who have left their homes in Norway to raid the coast of Ireland.

Foremost among them is Thorgrim Night Wolf who, along with his son and his father-in-law, hopes to seize a ship's worth of Irish riches and return home. But, in Fin Gall, greater plots are at work and Thorgrim finds himself by the end of the novel ashore in the Viking port city of Dubh-Linn, with no way home.

That's where the second book in the series, Dubh-Linn, picks up. And it is even better than the first.

It begins with Thorgrim and his son, Harald, on a raid of the monastery at Cloyne. He hopes that by pledging his aid to the Viking chieftain Arinbjorn White-Tooth, he will in return be given a passage home. The raid doesn't go as planned, but fortunately Thorgrim breaks ranks with the other raiders and leads a small party on a successful incursion into the ringfort.

The raid, although ultimately successful, is not as fruitful as the Viking warriors had hoped, and Thorgrim despairs of getting home. His hopes are further dashed as he and his son are embroiled in a bloody tug-of-war between Irish kings and lords who are vying for power in Tara. Two women -- Brigit nic Mael Sechnaill, daughter of the late high king of Tara, and Morrigan nic Conaing, whose brother Flann mac Conaing is sitting (at least temporarily) on the Tara throne -- are deeply embroiled in machinations to ensure that their own branches of the royal line remain in power. When Brigit finds herself widowed through unusual circumstances, she turns to Harald Thorgrimson in Dubh-Linn -- whose child she is carrying, after a brief dalliance in the previous book -- for assistance.

Soon, a Norse army is sailing toward Tara, even as a competing Irish army under the chieftain Ruarc mac Brain marches toward the same destination.

Nelson keeps many wheels in motion in Dubh-Linn, and the story he builds is both convoluted and exciting, the outcome impossible to predict. There are plots, berserkers, cunning clerics and poisoned pigs, subtle treachery and great battles that pit Norsemen against Norsemen, Irish against Irish and, of course, Norsemen against Irish.

I didn't want this book to end. Fortunately, I already have Book 3 in the series waiting on my nightstand.

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