Treason's Harbour [Hardcover]

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 repairs to his ship, Stephen Maturin assumes the center stage for the dockyards and salons of Malta are alive with Napoleon's agents, and the admiralty's intelligence network is compromised. Maturin's cunning is the sole bulwark against sabotage of Aubrey's daring mission.I havent read novels [in the past ten years] except for all of the Patrick OBrian series. It was, unfortunately, like tripping on heroin. I started on those books and couldnt stop.I devoured Patrick OBrians20-volume masterpiece as if it had been so many tots of Jamaica grog.I fell in love with his writing straightaway, at first withOBrians Aubrey-Maturin volumes actuallyconstitute a single 6,443-page novel, one that should have been on those listsof the greatest novels of the 20th century.[OBrians] Aubrey-Maturin series, 20 novels ofthe Royal Navy in the Napoleonic Wars, is a masterpiece. It will outlive mostof todays putative literary gems as Sherlock Holmes has outlivedBulwer-Lytton, as Mark Twain has outlived Charles Reade.The best historical novels ever written. . . .On every page Mr. OBrian reminds us with subtle artistry of the most importantof all historical lessons: that times change but people dont, that the griefsand follies and victories of the men and women who were here before us are infact the maps of our own lives.The Aubrey-Maturin series . . . far beyond anyepisodic chronicle, ebbs and flows with the timeless tide of character and thehuman heart.There is not a writer alive whose work I valueover his.Patrick OBrian is unquestionably the Homer ofthe Napoleonic wars.It has been something of a shock to findmyselfan inveterate reader of girl booksobsessed with Patrick OBriansNapoleonic-era historical novels. . . . What keeps me hooked are the evolvinls�