Rent Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin, #1: The Halfhyde Adventures

IIt's the 1890s. Royal Navy Lieutenant St Vincent Halfhyde finds himself out of favor with the navy and on half-pay ashore when he is summoned to the Admiralty. His mission: to sail to the Bight of Benin in West Africa and spy on the not-so-secret Russian presence there. As a Russian speaker who is familiar with Benin, Halfhyde is confident he can do the job—until he runs into Admiral Prince Gorsinski, cousin of the Czar and Halfhyde's former jailer. Aided only by an eager midshipman and a company of Russian mutineers, Halfhyde must face the dangers of flogging, malaria, and the smothering embrace of a former lover to foil Gorsinski and seize the day for Britain.