Lieutenant St. Vincent Halfhyde is a late-19th-century British naval officer with a sharp tongue, a quick mind, and a very low tolerance for fools (regardless of rank). He occasionally exasperates superior offficers who like him, and routinely enrages those who don't. He's the sort of person who's indispensible in time of war, but a square peg in the round holes of the peacetime navy. Even in peacetime, however, there are threats to Britain's security that are best met by an officer of Halfhyde's unique credentials. McCutchan wrote 15-odd books about Halfhyde, of which this is the third (and the first that I've read).

Philip McCutchan was a competent, though not gifted, storyteller. The plot of "Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest" (involving Halfhyde's pursuit of a British traitor who has stolen top-secret naval documents and intends to turn them over to Germany) is involving without being thrilling, and most of the supporting characters are straight from central casting: the eager young midshipman, the prissy executive officer, the sneering German captain, and so on. The middle section of the book takes place in Africa, but the setting seems curiously underdeveloped. The story's principal strengths are Halfhyde himself, first-rate scenes of action at sea, and a climax that generates considerable suspense before wrapping the plot up in an unexpected and extremely satisfying (if not altogether plausible) way.

Naval history enthusiasts are likely to be fascinated (as I was) by McCutchan's evocation of the late Victorian navy. The 1775-1815 and 1939-1945 eras are well represented in naval fiction, as are the present day and the near future. The Halfhyde stories are virtually the only naval adventures set in the decades around 1900, when coal-fired, steam-driven steel battleships ruled the waves, torpedo boats were new, and the diesel-electric submarine was still on the drawing board. McCutchan superbly captures the technology and the social fabric of the late Victorian era, from the dirty business of "coaling ship" to the art of taking a steam-driven launch through heavy surf to the formality of even casual conversations between officers.

The chronologically exotic setting is, for me, unusual enough and well-handled enough to be worth an extra star in the rating . . . but I've always been fascinated by the steam-and-coal era of naval history. If your taste in naval adventure runs more to Jack Aubrey, Horatio Hornblower, and the rest of the wood-and-canvas gang, you may want to adjust accordingly.