"A Season for Killing" is told from the perspective of Daniel Ryan, a corporal in Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Virginia in 1864 during the American Civil War, as the brutal campaign in the spring and summer of that year unfolds. Ryan, an Irish immigrant in a Georgian brigade, serves heroically in a succession of battles as the Confederate Army is forced back through Virginia to their capital city of Richmond. Ryan witnesses the steady decline of his Confederate Army, yet he fights on as best he can. What we find in this novel are the perennial issues of conflict, turmoil, futility and loss, contrasted with the finer human qualities of bravery, love and hope.

A Season for Killing

It is August 1863 and the Confederate Navy Cruiser Palmetto escapes from Charleston harbour to resume her career as a raider, hunting the shipping of the United States. The succeeding months see her range the Atlantic Ocean before facing a wild passage of Cape Horn, as her Captain Thomas Grover steers his ship for the Orient, seeking ever more victims in his mission to cripple the overseas commerce of the enemy. Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire Scotland and began writing after a career in education. “An Instrument of War,” the sequel to “Palmetto,” is his tenth book, all of them set in the war of 1861-65. He is currently working on the third and final book of the “Palmetto” series.

An Instrument of War

It is the late autumn of 1854 and the steam gunboat Spartan, commanded by James Rutherford has returned to duty following the repair of her battle damage in Calcutta. Another, though less powerful, Russian commerce raider is still at large in the China Sea, though as events follow their course, Rutherford is forced to confront the fact that this lesser antagonist might be a more potent adversary than he previously believed.

A Lesser Antagonist

It is 1861 and Thomas Grover has resigned from the US Navy to go with his native state of South Carolina which has left the Union. For two years his career in the new Confederate Navy is tedious and unrewarding. He is posted to Britain as a naval attaché, again denied his wish for active service, until he is transferred to Liverpool where he is offered command of a new warship. Grover must get to sea on the ship and see her armed and commissioned as CSS Palmetto, whose mission will be that of a predator, to range the oceans, seeking out and destroying American vessels wherever they are to be found.

Palmetto

When Lieutenant James Rutherford of the Honourable East India Company is summoned to Government House in Calcutta, he has no inkling of what awaits him there. To his great surprise, he is offered command of the Spartan, a newly converted steam warship, receiving orders to proceed to sea to hunt a Chinese pirate, but, though those orders appear straightforward enough, they initiate a deadly sequence of events during which the hunter all too often is the quarry. **** Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire in Scotland and began writing after a career in education. An Independent Command, set in the Far East in the mid-nineteenth century, is his thirteenth book. A sequel to it is currently in preparation.

An Independent Command

It is the autumn of 1864 and the Confederate raider Palmetto is in Far Eastern waters, where an encounter with Malay pirates and an attack by hostile islanders have left her seriously undermanned. Thomas Grover, Palmetto’s captain, must continue to elude the US warships hunting for his ship, while somehow finding a way of recruiting replacements for his crew. Failure to accomplish this will compel him to undertake a hazardous, return voyage to the American coast, where the overwhelming strength of the US blockading fleet awaits his beleaguered vessel.

The Turn of Fate

It is early 1854 and war looms with Tsarist Russia. James Rutherford and his ship Spartan are transferred to Royal Navy service and given a role patrolling Oriental waters in search of a powerful enemy warship which seeks to prey upon allied shipping. Reluctant to be confined to such tedium, Rutherford adopts a more proactive approach but this will lead to grave risks for Spartan’s crew. Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Scotland and began writing after a career in education. The Renegade is his sixteenth book and the fourth Spartan story. He is currently working on a fifth title.

The Renegade

It is the spring of 1864 and the Confederate raider Palmetto is off the Philippines, pursuing her campaign against US shipping. For her captain, Thomas Grover there is much to consider, for with the ship’s previously sustained engine damage not fully repaired, he learns that these seas are now patrolled by a new Union warship that vastly overmatches his own ship. As the war turns increasingly against the south, Grover must redouble his efforts against the enemy, but the hidden threats facing him are as dangerous as the known ones. About the author: Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire and began writing after a career in education. “Nothing Without Honour” is his eleventh book and continues the “Palmetto” series. He is currently working on a further title. By the same author: A Gathering of Soldiers Hard Passage North The Rappahannock Line Mirage of Victory The Bitterest Enemy A Season for Killing A Deepening Twilight Bond of Blood Palmetto An Instrument of War

Nothing Without Honour

It is the summer of 1853 and Commander James Rutherford leaves Calcutta once more to renew his campaign against organised Oriental piracy. The principal pirate leader Liang Ziu is dead, but Rutherford obtains intelligence that his criminal organisation continues to operate from a heavily fortified base, secure from conventional attack. Beset anew by intrigue and treachery, Rutherford must somehow confront and destroy this final stronghold, a task which poses difficulties and trials unlike any he has yet encountered. ***** Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire and began writing after a career in education. Set in the Far East, The Final Stronghold which continues the story of James Rutherford and his ship Spartan is his fifteenth book. He is currently at work on a fourth title in this series. By the same author: A Gathering of Soldiers Hard Passage North The Rappahannock Line Mirage of Victory The Bitterest Enemy A Season for Killing A Deepening Twilight Bond of Blood Palmetto An Instrument of War Nothing Without Honour The Turn of Fate An Independent Command The Trail of the Scorpion

The Final Stronghold

HARD PASSAGE NORTH continues the story of Irish immigrant Daniel Ryan, who has left his adopted Georgia home to serve in Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. It is the summer of 1862 and, following the campaign to save their capital city of Richmond, Lee and his men are moving north to confront the threat posed by the Union army of General John Pope. The story follows the experiences of Ryan and his Ogeechee Volunteer Rifles as the campaign of Second Manassas follows its course, leading to the first invasion of Maryland and culminating in the war's bloodiest day on the banks of Antietam Creek. Ryan and his comrades experience shortage, hardship, hunger and disease as the campaign follows its course, testing the bonds of their loyalty and friendship to their farthest limits as General Lee bids for final victory.

Hard Passage North

It is the autumn of 1852 and the British warship Spartan, commanded by James Rutherford, continues her mission for the East India Company, to destroy a criminal consortium led by the Scorpion, a Chinese criminal named Liang Ziu, who controls an alliance of ruthless pirates, complicit local rulers and corrupt western traders. Attack is followed by counter-attack, including an attempt on Rutherford’s own life, with treachery, extending to the higher echelons of the company, an additional threat, as the hunt for the Scorpion and his allies ranges across the Far Eastern Seas. Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Scotland and began writing after a career in education. “The Trail of the Scorpion,” his fourteenth book, is the sequel to “An Independent Command” and the second episode of the “Spartan” story. He is currently at work on a further title in the series.

The Trail of the Scorpion

Bond of Blood tells the story of two Irish brothers, each of whom makes the life-changing journey to the new world as the second half of the 19th century draws on. Thomas and Michael Casey are linked by blood, but find themselves on opposite sides of the US Civil War conflict. Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh, Scotland and began writing after a career in education. He has published a series of US Civil War books, and "Bond of Blood" is his eighth title. By the same author: A Gathering of Soldiers Hard Passage North The Rappahannock Line Mirage of Victory The Bitterest Enemy A Season for Killing A Deepening Twilight

Bond Of Blood

It is May of 1863 and the Civil War in North America has entered its third year. Facing a range of enemy threats, southern commander General Robert E. Lee proposes an invasion of the northern states to supply his army, relieve pressure on other imperilled fronts and to seek decisive victory on enemy territory that could end the war. Irish immigrant Daniel Ryan serves with his comrades of a Georgian regiment as the campaign unfolds, with Lee's army manoeuvring northwards through Virginia and across the Potomac River into Maryland and Pennsylvania, moving towards a fateful encounter with the Union army around the market town of Gettysburg. Martin Hicks lives in Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He began writing after a career in education and "Mirage of Victory" is his sixth book, based on the experiences of Daniel Ryan in the American Civil War of 1861-65. Other novels by the same author: A Gathering of Soldiers Hard Passage North The Rappahannock Line A Season for Killing A Deepening Twilight

Mirage of Victory

The Rappahannock Line continues the story of Irish immigrant Daniel Ryan who serves in Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. As the year 1862 draws to its close, the powerful Union army gathers its strength on the Rappahannock River in Virginia to renew its advance on the Confederate capital. Lee's army confronts it there bringing on a further bloody collision. Ryan and his comrades endure the Winter that follows the brutal battle of Fredericksburg, as the Confederate army suffers critical supply shortages, while, across the river, the enemy, under a new commander, reorganises and strengthens itself again for the Spring resumption of campaigning, which will test the skills of General Lee and the courage and resolve of his outnumbered soldiers as never before.

The Rappahannock Line

It is the late summer of 1863 and the third year of the war in North America. In the wake of the defeat at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee has returned, with his Confederate army, to Virginia. But a further crisis to the west, in the Tennessee theatre of the war, compels the general to detach a part of his army, to journey west to north Georgia in order to reinforce the beleaguered southern forces there. Daniel Ryan and his comrades of The Ogeechee Volunteer Rifles are among those making this journey, which leads them to a savage battlefield at Chickamauga Creek. There follows a dismal season of endurance and hardship, testing, as never before, the courage and resolve of the men of the Company B, who are called upon face an ordeal of blood and death, worse than any they have yet encountered.

The Bitterest Enemy

A Gathering of Soldiers relates the story of Daniel Ryan, an Irish immigrant who has begun a new life in Georgia just as the events leading up to the momentous civil war in America have begun to unfold. The book describes his experiences upon enlisting with a group of his peers, in a north Georgia militia company, following Abraham Lincoln's first summons for troops to invade the southern states. The novel follows the progress of Ryan, and his volunteer comrades as they evolve into soldiers, from their first posting on garrison duty on the Savannah River estuary, before journeying to Virginia to take part in the manoeuvring and the bloody engagements of the peninsular campaign in the summer of 1862, all of which changes the lives and outlooks of the surviving boys forever.

A Gathering of Soldiers

"A Deepening Twilight", the sequel to "A Season for Killing," continues the story of Daniel Ryan, an Irish immigrant serving in Robert E. Lee's confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the American Civil War. The novel relates Ryan's experiences in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, and in the trenches around Richmond, during the closing months of the war. As the army and the south sink towards defeat, he, and the remnant of his Georgia company continue the struggle against the odds, experiencing at first-hand how war can reveal the best, as well as the worst, of those on either side. In the midst of the conflict and suffering, Daniel Ryan finds that his relationship with the war widow Rebecca Channing is not as dead as he thought.

A Deepening Twilight

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