En route to America with a cargo of African slaves, the crew of the Liverpool Merchant, enraged at the captain's impotence in the face of disease, carry out a mutiny that pits two cousins against each other.

Kidnapped by the crew of an Africa-bound ship, a thirteen-year-old boy discovers to his horror that he is on a slaver and his job is to play music for the exercise periods of the human cargo.

A powerful and haunting novel of desire and devastating greed. Set in 18th-century Bristol, this novel charts one man's efforts to move to the wealthy sector of the city - at any cost. To this end, he becomes involved in slave-trading. This is a tale of his ambition, and the plight of one African in particular, brought over to be trained as a model slave.