The Heart of the Empire

Exhausted and longing for relief after a bloody campaign in North West India, the Queen’s Own Royal Strathspeys never imagined they’d be enlisted in the struggle with South African Boers so soon.

And the rules of the game have changed.

Faced with an entirely different calibre of enemy – civilised, respectable and Christian – traditional military tactics are irrelevant.

Challenged on home ground, the Boer army have an advantage which the British with all their might in numbers cannot quash.

Kitchener himself dictates that the British must dirty their hands with espionage.

So when Captain James Ogilvie is given a special assignment revolving round the most exquisite diamond in South Africa, the Red Daniel, it is seen as the perfect opportunity to infiltrate the Boer ranks.

Ogilvie soon faces struggles in his treacherous deception: struggles of morality in taking advantage of virtuous Boers, struggles of conscience in actively recruiting against his own men, and struggle of the heart as he falls into blackmail at the hands of a woman.

‘The Heart of the Empire’ is the fifth historical adventure story in the James Ogilvie series. It was originally published as ‘The Red Daniel’.

"Diverting reading …" - Denver Post

"His character conflicts are well organised." — Daily Telegraph

"A most exciting successor to his first novel — and it is just as rugged." — The Times, Hamilton, New Zealand

Philip McCutchan (1920-1996) grew up in the naval atmosphere of Portsmouth Dockyard and developed a lifetime's interest in the sea. Military history was an early interest resulting in several fiction books, from amongst his large output, about the British Army and its campaigns, especially in the last 150 years.

Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent publisher of digital books.