At 55, Henry Doyle has it all: wealth, happiness, a loving wife, a young son, and most important, his life − after a violently successful, 35-year career as a spy, soldier of fortune, and as needed, paid assassin. To the men he’s led in battle against Napoleon, he is El Habibka, the legendary Bedouin cavalry general. To the French who hate and fear him, he is more ominous: a shadow − a Sufi ghost – le wraith qui disparaît.
When Napoleon escapes captivity on Elba in 1815 to return as Emperor, Henry comes out of retirement, risking all to stop him – and fails, winding up in an Algerian torture dungeon. His half-brother Peter Kirkpatrick, a dashing American privateer captain, sails for Algiers in a daring, but utterly fool-hardy rescue attempt.
Henry’s wife Dihya, knowing nothing of Peter’s plan, determines to free her husband the only way she can think of: by becoming an odalisque in his captor’s harem. Her weapons are sex, her courage, and her razor-sharp shreu dagger.
The Most Bold and Daring Act of the Age weaves together three journeys: Peter Kirkpatrick’s attempt to fight his way into Algiers to rescue Henry; Dihya’s infiltration of Hashin’s Harem to accomplish the same goal; and Henry’s spiritual journey as he confronts what he believes is the loss of everything he has loved in the world.