Captain Bligh, of Bounty fame, is now governor of New South Wales and facing mutiny anew, having lost the support of local settlers. Jack Aubrey is commissioned to come to his rescue. With a beautiful but dangerous spy on board, along with an unwelcome hold full of convicts, and war with America brewing, can Captain Jack Aubrey reach Australia in one piece?
Outmanned and outgunned in a thrilling chase through an Antarctic storm, the crew of HMS Leopard discover they have become the quarry not the hunter.
тАШWhat is so gripping about OтАЩBrianтАЩs novels is the completeness with which he invents a world which is our own and not our own . . . OтАЩBrian is a brilliant observer.тАЩ
A. S. BYATT, Evening Standard
тАШI fell in love with his writing straightaway. It wasnтАЩt primarily the Nelson and Napoleonic period, more the human relationships . . . ItтАЩs about friendship, camaraderie. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin always remind me a bit of Mick and me.тАЩ
KEITH RICHARDS
Patrick OтАЩBrian was born in 1914 and published his first book, Caesar, when he was only fifteen. In the 1960s he began work on the idea that, over the next four decades, evolved into the twenty-novel long AubreyтАУMaturin series (with an extra unfinished volume published posthumously). In 1995 he was awarded the CBE, and in 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He died in January 2000 at the age of 85.