The task facing Captain Daniel Swift is not an enviable one. Under sealed orders for a long and arduous voyage west and south, he must forge an efficient crew from the ragged group, the old and the weak, criminals, and young boys, under his command. Thanks to Swift`s evil reputation, coupled with the wretched conditions of wartime naval life, only the most desperate will join him of their own free will. To make up the numbers, he must resort to press gangs. As a result of missions led by Swift`s young nephew, William Bentley, the frigate Welfare gains the last two members of her company. Farmer`s boy Thomas Fox, tricked with casual illegality, and smuggler Jesse Broad, snatched while returning from a run to France, soon find themselves bereft of home and loved ones, on board a ship Swift runs with the utmost cruelty, policing by fist, by rope`s end, rattan cane, and cat. Conditions are already ripe for unrest, but as the voyage wears on-unexplained, and to the crew, purposeless, the food becomes rotten, the water foul, the men weakened by disease and relentless punishments. Inevitably, the talk below deck turns to mutiny. Driven by a relentlessly building, tension-filled story, A Fine Boy For Killing is a fascinating picture of the realities of life on board a naval frigate, the first in a remarkable new series of historical naval adventures from Jan Needle.