"The relationship [between Aubrey and Maturin]...is about the best thing afloat....For Conradian power of description and sheer excitement there is nothing in naval fiction to beat the stern chase as the outgunned Leopard staggers through mountain waves in icy latitudes to escape the Dutch seventy-four." —Stephen Vaughan, Observer Commissioned to

On Desolation Island, with the known world out of reach, uneasy alliances are sometimes forged...

The fifteenth installment in Patrick O'Brian's widely claimed series of Aubrey/Maturin novels is in equal parts mystery, adventure, and psychological drama. A British whaler has been captured by an ambitious chief in the sandwich islands at French instigation, and Captain Aubrey, R. N., Is dispatched with the Surprise to restore

“If Jane Austen had written rousing sea yarns, she would have produced something very close to the prose of Patrick O'Brian.” —Time It’s 1802. The Treaty of Amiens has brought an end to the hostilities between Great Britain and France. Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, naval surgeon Stephen Maturin,

"Every [Aubrey-Maturin] book is packed to absolute straining with erudition, wit, history, and thunderous action." —Joe Hill All Patrick O'Brian's strengths are on parade in this novel of action and intrigue, set partly in Malta, partly in the treacherous, pirate-infested waters of the Red Sea. While Captain Aubrey worries about