The Map Maker

By Tony C Babot

The Map Maker is a historical adventure story which starts in war-torn modern day Israel then takes the reader back almost two hundred years to my great great-grandfather's childhood in post-revolutionary France. The Map Maker is the story of Louis Babot, a young Sephardic Jewish boy with a special gift, or curse, of supernatural foresight coupled with exceptional navigational skills. This gift comes to the attention of Napoleon in 1789, when Louis, the young apprentice navigator, helps sneak the French expeditionary fleet out of the besieged Toulon harbour under the nose of Horatio Nelson and his Men-O-War.The Map Maker tells of how Louis is commissioned in 1811 by the Emperor to form what is in fact the first ever reconnaissance unit, a task previously carried out by civilian spies, traveling peddlers and merchants. In 1812, Louis' squadron enters Russia weeks ahead of La Grande Arm?e to make maps and gather intelligence. Riding by night and hiding by day the squadron prepares the way for the invasion. It is there, deep inside enemy territory, where Capitaine Louis Babot meets and falls in love with the beautiful daughter of a Russian Baron. Louis is now not only plagued by ghosts of soldiers yet to die but also tormented by his feelings for this woman who was forbidden to him. In his visions Louis is warned repeatedly of impending disasters which are about to befall La Grande Arm?e, so in a desperate race against time he leads his unit back to Napoleon's forward headquarters in order to inform the Emperor of a trap being prepared along his route to Moscow, and to relay to him the subject of his recurring visions, in the hope that they be taken seriously.The Map Maker is a story with all the elements of an exciting adventure into the past.Romance; love found between two people from different worlds, whose unification bore the penalty of death. War; on a scale previously unimagined. An extremely inglorious war that shows it's futile, tragic faces. Hope; without which everything else is meaningless. Tony Babot

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1477696652
• ISBN13: 9781477696651
• Release Date: July 2012
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.7" x 5.1"