To paraphrase a Roman philosopher, trouble hurts the worst when it's self-inflicted. God knows Capt. Alan Lewrie, RN, has been in hot water before, but this time he can't "cozen" his way out. At the very pinnacle of success and acclaim after the Battle of Camperdown, all of his "overseas chickens" come home to roost, resulting in public embarassment and scandal, his wife's betrayed fury, and sneers from superiors at Admiralty. It is "Coventry" for Lewrie and the gallant men of his bold frigate, HMS Proteus -- out of sight and very far out of mind to the Fever Isles of the Caribbean early in 1798.

Alan Lewrie and Proteus sail off in ignominy, to a region torn by war, graft, double dealing and petty professional feuds, to a failing British intervention on the ultra-rich French colony of Saint Domingue, also wracked by an utterly cruel and bloodthirsty slave rebellion led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, the future father of Haitian independence.

Old acquaintances, both the welcome and the odious, await him -- along with the newly revived United States Navy almost but not yet at war with an arrogant France. True allies are rare and enemies are rife, along with the dread of hurricanes, Yellow Fever and Malaria, and of course, the yardarm-to-yardarm battles that determine the fate of empires.

Beset and distracted though he might be, it will take all of Lewrie's pluck, daring, skill, and his usual tongue-in-cheek deviousness, to navigate all the perils of a Sea of Grey.