Latitudes Edge

Book 2 of the Nicholas Cruwys Naval Series

By: Adrian Westbrooke

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Book Two of the Nicholas Cruwys Naval Series

In the wake of the Battle of the Saintes, Lieutenant Nicholas Cruwys is promoted to commander and granted his first independent command: Alert, a captured American schooner refitted for speed, stealth, and irregular duty. He earns distinction along the fractured edges of empire—chasing rumours, carrying dispatches, and sailing far from the lines of fleet engagement.

The war is ending and his command may be lost. But for Nicholas Cruwys, the most perilous waters lie ahead.

Returning across the Atlantic with Alert, Cruwys finds himself cast into the quiet anteroom of peace—London in autumn, a navy in flux, and a command that may be sold from under him. Admiralty favour is fleeting, commissions vanish overnight, and the politics of peacetime prove more treacherous than any lee shore.

As old alliances shift and new suspicions surface, Cruwys is drawn into a subtler campaign: coded letters, veiled threats, and the careful watching of men who say nothing and mean rather more. From drawing rooms and coffee houses to fogbound estuaries and contested sea-lanes, Latitudes Edge traces a man navigating the uncertain space between war and peace, honour and ambition, loyalty and memory.

Following Soundings Edge, this second novel in the Cruwys series deepens its exploration of character, naval life, and the quiet tensions beneath surface command. For readers of Patrick O’Brian, C.S. Forester, and Andrew Taylor, Latitudes Edge offers a taut, lyrical continuation of a seafaring life shaped by silence, resolve, and the ever-shifting winds of history.