The surgeon's mate

O'Brian's superb series on the early-19th-century adventures of Jack Aubrey, a Royal Navy officer, and his friend Stephen Maturin, Navy surgeon and naturalist, continues with a look at the darker side of Maturin's life: his work in British intelligence. Aubrey, Maturin and Diana Villiers (Maturin's fickle and enigmatic love) are passengers on a packet ship from Nova Scotia to England when two American privateers give chase. They are hunting Maturin, who has compromised U.S. spy networks. The Americans are eluded, and upon reaching England, Maturin sets off to France. Armed with safe conduct papers, he lectures on natural history and installs Villiers in Paris. Suspicious French agents try to bait Maturin but he refuses to be lured into an indiscretion. On his return to London, Maturin is sent to woo Catalan officers and troops from the French cause to the British. Aubrey provides transport, but despite his best support, including staging a splendid charade chase on the water, the mission takes a nasty turn when their ship founders; seized by the French, Maturin and Aubrey are hauled off to Paris's infamous Temple Prison. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

The Surgeon's Mate , volume eight in Patrick O'Brian's marvelous collection of seafaring novels (e.g., The Ionian Mission , Audio Reviews, LJ 1/94), continues the saga of Jack Aubrey, a post captain in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars, and his particular friend Stephen Maturin, who is at once a ship's surgeon and a British intelligence agent. What makes this series outstanding is not only its exciting historical plot--set, in this outing, between the renewed war with America and the shifting loyalties of Spain--but the ongoing development of personalities and relationships among the principles: Jack; his wife, Sophie; Stephen; the femme fatale Diana Villiers; and a supporting cast of sailors, admirals, captains, naturalists, and enemy agents worthy of Charles Dickens. The friendship that develops between Jack and Stephen over the course of these novels can only be compared in its psychological complexity to the characters of Henry James. Reader Patrick Tull narrates The Surgeon's Mate capably. This entire series is recommended for libraries wishing to provide their patrons with a rare mix of excitement, historical accuracy, and literary depth.-- Sharon Cumberland, Graduate Ctr., CUNY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

This time out, Captain Jack Aubrey and ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin limp home from America for a brief rest before sailing to the Baltic to subvert the occupying Catalan troops--and then to the Bay of Biscay to run aground. The dashing Aubrey/Maturin naval tales (among others, The Ionian Mission--see above) continue to come out in intervals from England, where they are hugely and deservedly popular. Published some years ago in the UK, they've been arriving out of order, so readers find themselves sorting out prequels from sequels. But shipping arrangements do no damage to these polished, historically accurate, and intensely pleasurable tales of the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic era. Anglo-Iberian physician and spy Stephen Maturin is again the linchpin, providing the excuse for his dashing friend Aubrey to flee the mess he has made of his British investments. Aboard H.M.S Ariel, Aubrey transports Maturin to the Baltic, where the doctor will use his linguistic skills and impeccable Catalan separatist credentials to convince Spanish troops holding Baltic islands for Napoleon that they should desert the Corsican monster and throw their lot in with England. The Baltic mission is successful, but the subsequent flight from Scandinavia runs into the rocks off the French coast. The officers are taken prisoner and transported to Paris, where they dine handsomely on meals cooked by a pretty widow as they await execution. Splendid escape. Literate and amusing.