Keane

Welcome to James Keane – card sharp and ladies’ man – and one of the finest soldiers of Wellington’s army. Keane – hot-tempered, a maverick, never quite accepted by his fellow officers – is in trouble for killing his man in a duel: An activity forbidden by Wellington. To avoid court martial, he takes on an unwelcome assignment: to form an ill-assorted bunch of reprobates into an elite unit capable of operating behind the lines. A nineteenth-century Dirty Dozen.

The intrepid band of warriors, led by Captain James Keane, have been given their toughest job yet by Wellington. Both the British and French armies have retreated from the old university city of Coimbra, leaving it in ruins, the inhabitants destitute and the houses full of wounded from all sides.

Wellington has handed Keane his least favourite job: he is to get himself captured by the French, escape from captivity once in France and make his way to Paris to work undercover there. There are rumours of unrest against Napoleon's regime, and Keane's task is to work out which, if any, the British should support. Nothing works out as planned. Keane, bereft of most of his loyal team, finds himself in an unknown, confusing political and social world.