The Commodore (Aubrey - Maturin Series #17)

Amazon.com
After several installments of gallivanting around the South Seas, Aubrey and Maturin return home to England, where the surgeon-cum-intelligence-agent discovers that his wife has disappeared. As if such a domestic crisis weren't enough, the intrepid pair are also dispatched to the Gulf of Guinea (to suppress the slave trade) and to Ireland (to rebuff an impending French invasion.) O'Brian's stunning range, coupled with his mind-bending command of minutiae, explain why James Hamilton-Paterson has called him "the Homer of the Napoleonic Wars."


From Publishers Weekly
This 17th installment in O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series of historical naval tales spent two weeks on PW's bestseller list. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


William Boyd
The acclaim that Patrick O'Brian's prodigious 17-title, nineteenth-century seafaring sequence is receiving must eventually make its two central characters--the sea captain and his ship's surgeon--one of the most memorable literary double acts of the twentieth century. With great justification, too, for this novel sequence is not only a miraculously sustained effort but it is also evidence of a refined literary sensibility and one of the best and most authentic historical time machines I have ever encountered.


From AudioFile
In this installment of the popular series of nautical adventures, Jack Aubrey becomes commodore and tracks down slave traders. The novel is laced with fascinating sea lore and wisdom. This program has the talented British reader it needs. Roberts is a master at capturing the dialects of the sailors, who come from different social classes and corners of the British empire. He skillfully switches characters and conveys the nuances of the dialogue. P.B.J. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
In this seventeenth entry in the popular Aubrey/Maturin series, O'Brian brings his British navy sea dogs home for a time, then sends them off to Africa to disrupt the slave trade and on to the Irish coast to thwart a landing by Napoleon's navy. Jack Aubrey's joyous homecoming is soon followed by word he's been promoted to commodore and will command a squadron of fighting ships. But home has only woe to offer the ship's surgeon, naturalist, and spy Stephen Maturin: Brigid, the daughter born after he left England, seems unable to speak; his beloved Diana has run away, leaving widow Clarissa Oakes to care for Brigid; and Sir Joseph Blaine of naval intelligence confides that he, Maturin, and Mrs. Oakes have all earned the vengeful hatred of "a hemi-demi royal, the Duke of Habachtsthal." O'Brian's tales offer many pleasures: complex, intriguing plots; strong relationships (particularly the friendship of Aubrey and Maturin) and colorful supporting characters; rich historical detail; brisk description of ships and their rigging and weather and its effects. The Commodore is, to be sure, a relatively landlubberly book: the squadron's exploits off Africa are fully described, but concerns ashore dominate, and the climactic confrontation with the French navy is very brief. But O'Brian's faithful readers will demand his latest effort, which leaves plenty of plotlines dangling for resolution in number 18. Mary Carroll


From the Publisher
8 1.5-hour cassettes


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This 17th installment in O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series of historical naval tales spent two weeks on PW's bestseller list. (Apr.)


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