The Bell Cannon Affair

Bad luck seems to follow Ewan Gilmore, a crewman on the steam liner Isle of Lewis. It's a blot that makes him a pariah among the crew, and the captain has given him notice. He has one last chance to prove himself. He's to masquerade as a passenger and serve as secret bodyguard for a certain Professor Jakub Skovajsa and his gifted daughter, Tereza.The Skovajsas are being hounded out of the country under a cloud of grief, suspicion, and fear. Not even they know exactly what happened...
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Bad luck seems to follow Ewan Gilmore, a crewman on the steam liner Isle of Lewis. It's a blot that makes him a pariah among the crew, and the captain has given him notice. He has one last chance to prove himself. He's to masquerade as a passenger and serve as secret bodyguard for a certain Professor Jakub Skovajsa and his gifted daughter, Tereza.The Skovajsas are being hounded out of the country under a cloud of grief, suspicion, and fear. Not even they know exactly what happened during the professor's last experiment; only that somehow it killed his wife, along with a squad of soldiers, a general, two congressmen, and the Secretary of War. Rumor has it the professor was working on a secret weapon that would end all wars, and he still has a prototype hidden away. The public wants them gone, the press wants the full story, and agents from more than one country would kill for the prototype.No other ship will take the Skovajsas, but the Isle of Lewis can't afford not to. It's hardly the setup for a shipboard romance. As passions rise on board, the Lewis steams eastward into a maelstrom of death threats, dissemblers, stowaways, shysters, spies, and a raging hurricane, with the mystery of the Bell Cannon at its eye.