Kiwi Wars

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This is a thrilling new military adventure for Captain Jack Crossman.Captain 'Fancy Jack' Crossman has been sent to New Zealand, where the Maori Wars are in progress. His remit is to map the bush country and to set up a network of spies. During conflict he finds that the Maori are an honourable and formidable enemy. However, nefarious Europeans are at work, enriching themselves as land agents.Jack becomes entangled with one of these agents, the brother of his lifetime burden Private Harry Wynter, and is in danger of being sucked down into a morass of evil affairs. When the final revelation comes, Jack realises just how heinous these crimes are, and he must hunt down and destroy these monstrous elements...From Publishers WeeklySet in 1860, Kilworth's solid eighth military adventure novel (after Rogue Officer) takes series hero Capt. Fancy Jack Crossman to New Zealand, a recently acquired British colony whose natives, the Maori, are in revolt. Tasked with setting up a spy network among the Maori, Jack must also deal with an unscrupulous land agent, Abe Wynter, whose younger brother happens to be a private under Jack's command. A gold rush complicates Jack's mission, and he soon finds himself doing his best to maintain his standards of honor and humanity in the heat of a battle that includes the lethal rapid-firing steam gun. Patrick O'Brian fans will notice similarities between Crossman and Capt. Jack Aubrey (each has a wife waiting back home in England, and each is tempted to stray), but those who prefer straightforward action in the vein of Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe series will be most satisfied. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistCaptain Jack Crossman is sent to New Zealand in 1860 during the battles between the British and the Maori tribes. The few men under Captain “Fancy” Jack’s command usually pose as a mapmaking detail to mask their true work in espionage, but this time they really are making maps. Jack finds this dull, but he does truly admire the Maori, who are skilled warriors with their own code of ethics. He is far less enamored of one of the colony’s wealthiest men, a pugnacious, self-serving, and cunning land agent and brother to Jack’s own private Harry Wynter. Jack engages him to act as his agent and acquire a farm for him, in spite of the man’s sketchy reputation. This leads Jack into a moral quandary about the war and his own desire to secure land that is not rightfully his. An excellent addition to the Fancy Jack Crossman series as Jack must once again deal with conflicts between the British army and his own well-honed conscience. --Patty Engelmann