Jack Jaeger
The fall of Singapore was certainly the British Empire's greatest historical defeat and its worst humiliation and would eventually be the prime cause of losing its entire empire. Thrown into this mix of chaos, death and destruction comes a young Cornish sea captain, James Pendragon, who has spent the two years before this maelstrom rebuilding a magnificent, 180-foot brigantine, the China Pearl, with the intention of becoming a sea trader. He soon finds that all 'legitimate' contracts are already fiercely guarded and controlled by the British and European barons or by Chinese 'warlords'. With the weight of his financial debt, he has no other option but to turn to running guns from Australia, to India and China, paid for by the smuggling of opium from China. However, it's not long before he realises these deadly cargoes are even more coveted and closely guarded by the 'warlords' than legitimate trade and that he not only risks losing all he has worked for, but that his life, and the lives of those he cares for most, is at stake. And yet out of this madness comes a love he hadn't sought and from a direction he could never have imagined.