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In “A Smile of Fortune”, a ship’s captain meets the seemingly genial Mr. Jacobus and his irritable brother while embarking in the tropics. One a respectable businessman with a considerable reputation, the other a confessed rogue and entrepreneur with no reputation left to lose, the captain is at a loss to determine which he should befriend. In this masterly tale of misplaced loyalty, family feuds, and illicit bargaining, the captain finds himself the unwitting partner in a deeply unorthodox transaction.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. When the Russian Royal Family Jewels are put on display at Orbin’s department store in the fortnight leading up to Christmas, Mr Rossiter Payne can’t resist a present to himself. An inconspicuous London bookseller by day, an experienced jewel thief by night - can he pull off this latest festive heist?

While the central figures in each of the three stories in this collection are sailing captains, the main action in two of them takes place on land, albeit in sight of the sea. In "A Smile of Fortune", a naive young sea captain falls into grave moral peril when he locks horns with a wily ship chandler in Mauritius. In "The Secret Sharer", a newly appointed sea captain is confronted with an altogether different kind of challenge when he attempts to haul in a rope ladder over his ship's side one evening and finds it much heavier than usual. In "Freya of the Seven Isles", Jasper Allen, the captain...