Shipwrecked on an uninhabited island in the Dutch East Indies as the Napoleonic Wars rage on, circumstances look far from promising for Captain Jack Aubrey and his crew. And yet, having overcome the odds and contrived their escape, still further peril awaits in the fiercely tidal waters of the Salibu Passage and the penal settlements of New South Wales.
What fresh dangers lie over the horizon and will Jack Aubrey prevail?
‘In a highly competitive field it goes straight to the top. A real first-rater.’
MARY RENAULT
‘I’ve read [Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey‐Maturin nautical novel‐cycle] three times now, not least for its beautiful portrayal of a long‐term male friendship.’
ROBERT MACFARLANE
Patrick O’Brian was born in 1914 and published his first book, Caesar, when he was only fifteen. In the 1960s he began work on the idea that, over the next four decades, evolved into the twenty-novel long Aubrey–Maturin series (with an extra unfinished volume published posthumously). In 1995 he was awarded the CBE, and in 1997 he received an honorary doctorate of letters from Trinity College, Dublin. He died in January 2000 at the age of 85.