A LOST FATHER MADE HIM AN ORPHAN ON THE STREET. NAPOLEON'S WAR MADE HIM A HERO ON THE SEA. Clean Young Adult Action series for all ages! Winner of the Chanticleer International Goethe Award for Historical Fiction. Paladin's War (book 3 of the Adventures of Jonathan Moore series): 1802. Fourteen year-old Midshipman Jonathan Moore, Marine Private Sean Flagon and adventurer Delain Dowdeswell enjoy the company of family and friends during a delicate peace between France and England. However, mysterious spy networks now freely roam Europe's great cities, and the ships and armies of all nations remain on the edge of war. An elaborate scheme involves manipulating Jonathan, now aboard the eighteen-gun HMS Paladin, the Royal Navy's fastest ship. Commanded by his friend and mentor, Lieutenant Thomas Harrison, their mission is to deliver an important treaty to a clandestine location. Remaining in London, and bored with endless tea parties and tedious school lessons, Delain encounters a shadowy black rider sneaking about the mansions of London's elite. Suspecting foul play, she investigates and enters a web of secret meetings, spies, coded messages and kidnapping. At first merely interesting, Delain's investigation soon turns deadly as she finds that all clues lead to the Paladin's mission, and to her friends, now thousands of miles away--and in grave danger. Once at sea, the boys have a mystery of their own to solve: their sister ship, HMS Echo, avoids all contact. A sabotaged gun, a mistrusted crew, and a vicious assault on their ship by a well-armed band of assailants has the men and officers of the Paladin anxious. Even Jonathan is uneasy, forced by agents of the king to withhold vital information from his officers. Led to waters far from home, the boys now fight for their ship and their lives against a rogue naval commodore with a war plan of his own. The answers to these mysteries will eventually be discovered by Jonathan Moore, if he can defeat his powerful enemies in the Black Sea - and survive the final conflict of the Paladin's War!
