Treason’s Harbour: Book 9 (Aubrey-Maturin) - Tapa dura

‘...full of the energy that comes from a writer having struck a vein... Patrick O’Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.’
James Hamilton- Paterson

‘You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O’Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him.’
Kevin Myers, Irish Times

‘A mirror to Nelson’s navy – compulsively readable.’
Hammond Innes

‘Aubrey and Maturin are men to believe in as they come to terms with their comfortable flaws against an exceedingly accurate Maltese backdrop in this, the ninth Aubrey novel. More power to your yardarm, Mr O’Brian.’
Frank Peters, The Times

‘Patrick O’Brian’s engaging Captain Jack Aubrey is the best thing afloat.’
Stephen Vaughan, Observer

Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin tales are widely hailed as the greatest series of historical novels ever written. All eighteen books are to be re-issued in hardback by HarperCollins with stunning new jackets.

Uniquely among authors of naval fiction, Patrick O’Brian allows his characters to develop with experience. The Jack Aubrey of Treason’s Harbour has a record of successes equal to that of the most brilliant of Nelson’s band of brothers, and he is no less formidable or decisive in action or strategy. But he is wiser, kinder, gentler too.

Much of the plot of Treason’s Harbour depends on intelligence and counter-intelligence, a field in which Aubrey’s friend Stephen Maturin excels. Through him we get a clearer insight into the life and habits of the sea officers of Nelson’s time than we would ever obtain seeing things through their own eyes. There is plenty of action and excitement in this novel, but it is the atmosphere of a Malta crowded with senior officers waiting for news of what the French are up to, and wondering whether the war will end before their turn comes for prize money and for fame, that is here so freshly and vividly conveyed.