THE YELLOW ADMIRAL

The 18th voyage for Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, stormy-petrel protagonists of O'Brian's utterly addictive series on life in the service of His Britannic Majesty's navy during the Napoleonic Wars (The Commodore, 1995, etc.). Having returned from a distasteful mission in West African waters, where he commanded a squadron with orders to suppress the slave trade, Aubrey is fending off a welter of lawsuits filed by aggrieved ship-owners whose vessels he seized. Abandoned by his superiors, the aging ex-captain fears he may be passed over for promotion or, worse yet, yellowed (elevated and then retired on half pay). Obliged to play country squire, the cash-strapped Aubrey (a Tory MP) makes new enemies when (as lord of the manor) he opposes enclosure of a common abutting his Dorset estate. Finally sent back to sea with his steadfast shipmate Maturin, the polymath physician who doubles as a spy for the Admiralty, the embattled mariner encounters even tougher going. Assigned to wearisome blockade duty off of Brest, he captures a French privateer laden with treasure but is charged with leaving his assigned station. Aubrey is further dispirited by a letter from his usually complaisant wife who accuses him of adultery with a Canadian lass whose billetsdoux he has unwisely left about the house. Meantime, the Corsican usurper suffers a crushing defeat at Leipzig, and in anticipation of peace the Royal Navy launches the Georgian era's equivalent of a downsizing campaign. Back in England after a successful intelligence-gathering sojourn on the Continent, Maturin arranges for his old friend to assume a training command in rebellious Chile's fledgling navy. As the two sail off for South America, however, word reaches them that Napoleon has escaped from Elba and Aubrey is to head a task force patrolling the Straits of Gibraltar. Another excellent adventure, complete with period-piece arcana, for oceanic literature's oddest and arguably most appealing couple.