Overview

A brilliant, page-turning account of the most famous sea fight in history. Beginning with a vivid recreation of Napoleon's army assembling at Boulogne for the invasion of England, Nicholas Best tells how the French fleet joined with their Spanish allies and set out for a decisive battle with the Royal Navy. Following events through the eyes of eyewitnesses on the gun deck as well as the admiral's cabins, he takes us to the Mediterranean and the West Indies and back to the coast of Spain as the rival fleets manoeuvre for advantage. Then follows his gripping minute-by-minute account of the actual battle: a truly murderous affair as the rival fleets trade cannon shots as point-blank range.

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9781786080691

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Reviews

"""You can almost smell the whiff of gunsmoke and feel the sweat as the battle begins. This is history with a page-turning quality."" Good Book Guide ""Recreates the terrible tension and uncertainty of the naval campaign that led to the most famous sea fight in history. His original research draws on a wide range of eyewitnesses to craft a gripping minute-by-minute account."" Cambridgeshire Journal ""Rattles along excitingly... the battle is grippingly described with a Master and Commander/Patrick O'Brian touch."" Daily Mail ""Nicholas Best uses eyewitness accounts to recreate the tension and uncertainty of the campaign that led to the battle, and to describe the carnage and the glory of Trafalgar itself."" Church Today ""This gripping book tells the story of Britain's legendary naval victory on October 21, 1905 in which the national hero, Admiral Lord Nelson, was killed by a French sharpshooter... Nicholas Best has done an excellent job describing the build up to the Battle and the primitive conditions on the ships... This book is replete with fascinating details."" Glasgow Evening Times ""None are likely to be more comprehensive or gripping than this one, which describes the Royal Navy's triumph over the French which effectively scuppered Napoleon's threat to invade Britain... He is unsparing in his details of the bloodshed wrought by cannons and cutlass wielding seamen who boarded the shattered ships."" Birmingham Post ""Trafalgar was not only a great sea battle, it saved Britain from invasion by Napoleon. That is why this book, which rattles along excitingly, gave me fresh appetite for the subject. It sets Nelson's victory in context - the risks of 1940 were just as grave in 1805.... Nicholas Best's racy account of the prelude to the sea battle makes one realise how risky sea warfare was under sail."" Daily Mail"

You can almost smell the whiff of gunsmoke and feel the sweat as the battle begins. This is history with a page-turning quality. Good Book Guide Recreates the terrible tension and uncertainty of the naval campaign that led to the most famous sea fight in history. His original research draws on a wide range of eyewitnesses to craft a gripping minute-by-minute account. Cambridgeshire Journal Rattles along excitingly... the battle is grippingly described with a Master and Commander/Patrick O'Brian touch. Daily Mail Nicholas Best uses eyewitness accounts to recreate the tension and uncertainty of the campaign that led to the battle, and to describe the carnage and the glory of Trafalgar itself. Church Today This gripping book tells the story of Britain's legendary naval victory on October 21, 1905 in which the national hero, Admiral Lord Nelson, was killed by a French sharpshooter... Nicholas Best has done an excellent job describing the build up to the Battle and the primitive conditions on the ships... This book is replete with fascinating details. Glasgow Evening Times None are likely to be more comprehensive or gripping than this one, which describes the Royal Navy's triumph over the French which effectively scuppered Napoleon's threat to invade Britain... He is unsparing in his details of the bloodshed wrought by cannons and cutlass wielding seamen who boarded the shattered ships. Birmingham Post Trafalgar was not only a great sea battle, it saved Britain from invasion by Napoleon. That is why this book, which rattles along excitingly, gave me fresh appetite for the subject. It sets Nelson's victory in context - the risks of 1940 were just as grave in 1805.... Nicholas Best's racy account of the prelude to the sea battle makes one realise how risky sea warfare was under sail. Daily Mail

Author Information

Nicholas Best grew up in Kenya, of Anglo-Irish origin, and was educated there, in England, and at Trinity College, Dublin. He served a spell in Britain's Grenadier Guards, during which he was airlifted to Belize to prevent its invasion by Guatemalan tanks - an experience that gave him his first short story (in Penthouse) and a satirical novel Where were you at Waterloo? Thereafter he worked in London as a financial journalist before becoming a full time writer. He is the author of Happy Valley: the Story of the English in Kenya, Tennis and the Masai (a comic novel later serialised on Radio 4) and more than a dozen history books, including Trafalgar, The Greatest Day in History (a Waterstone's recommendation of the month) and Five Days that shocked the World, about the end of World War Two. He was the Financial Times fiction critic for ten years and has written also for BBC Radio 4, the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times, Observer and Times Literary Supplement etc. In 2010, he was long-listed for the inaugural Sunday Times-EFG Private Bank short story award of £25,000, the biggest short story prize in the world.

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