The Rising Sun

This book is a tour de force of historical fiction recounting one small nation's dream of building a road across Panama to the Pacific Ocean, thus cutting the world in half.

'They have returned. One of the oarsmen is calling me. These are the last breaths of clean air, the last of a table that doesn't yawl beneath the pen. The last of civilisation, save for what we take with us.'

Setting sail from Madeira on the final leg of her maiden voyage, "The Rising Sun" journeys westwards, the biggest of a five-ship flotilla sailing to Darien on the northern coast of Panama. The journey is chronicled by Roderick Mackenzie, a young Scot from Edinburgh whose cunning and ambition have secured him the position of Superintendent of Cargoes - and the unofficial role of go-between serving the feuding leaders of the expedition.

As old enmities return to the surface and rations spoil in the punishing heat, Mackenzie is desperate to reach land. But such is the hardship and terror the men are destined to confront there that only a single ship will limp home to Scotland in the spring of 1699 . . .