It's 1798, and Dewey Lambdin's lovable but incorrigible rogue, Captain Alan Lewrie and his crew of the Proteus frigate have their work cut out for them as they sail through the war-torn Caribbean. First, Lewrie has rashly vowed to uphold a friend's honor in a duel to the death. Second, he faces the horridly unwelcome arrival of HM Government's Foreign Office agents. And last, he must engineer the showdown with his arch foe and nemesis, the hideous ogre of the French Revolution's Terror, that clever fiend Guillaume Choundas! Lewrie must also deal with the newly reborn United States Navy, that uneasy, unofficial "ally," and the stunning, life-altering surprise they bring. For good or ill, Lewrie's in the "quag" up to his neck, this time.