• Treason's Harbour

  • Aubrey/Maturin Series, Book 9
  • By: Patrick O'Brian
  • Narrated by: Patrick Tull
  • Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (1,739 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Treason's Harbour  By  cover art

Treason's Harbour

By: Patrick O'Brian
Narrated by: Patrick Tull
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $21.49

Buy for $21.49

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

The espionage activities of cunning ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin have kept him at odds with the most important French agent in the Mediterranean, Lesueur, a man with a long memory and a taste for revenge. When that revenge takes the shape of the delicate and distracting Mrs. Fielding, who also attracts the ever-wandering eye of Jack Aubrey, Stephen's sensibilities are severely tested.
Don't miss the rest of the Aubrey/Maturin series.
©1983 Patrick O'Brian (P)2003 Recorded Books, LLC.

Critic reviews

"...comic, grim, farcical, and tragic. An essential of the truly gripping book for the narrative addict is the creation of a whole, solidly living world for the imagination to inhabit, and O'Brian does this with prodigal specificity and generosity." (A.S. Byatt)

What listeners say about Treason's Harbour

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,445
  • 4 Stars
    234
  • 3 Stars
    45
  • 2 Stars
    7
  • 1 Stars
    8
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,290
  • 4 Stars
    108
  • 3 Stars
    13
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    5
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,148
  • 4 Stars
    199
  • 3 Stars
    47
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    3

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

The restoration of the average

"It was as though he were running a race: a race in which he had done fairly well for awhile, after a slow start, but one in which he could not hold his lead and was being overtaken, perhaps from lack of that particularly nameless quality that brought some men success when it just eluded others, though they might take equal pains. He could not put his finger on the fault with any certainty, and there were days when he could say with real conviction that the whole thing was mere fatality, the other side of the good luck that had attended him in his twenties and early thirties, the restoration of the average."
- Patrick O'Brian, Treason's Harbour

Nearly half done with the series and I'm still as entranced with it as I was with book one (Master and Commander). O'Brian does change things up a bit with this one that spends as much time on land as on water. I was excited about the extended period spent in Malta because I'm taking my family to Malta (staying in Valletta and traveling to Gozo) this summer. It was nice to get a literary exposure to spots one will spend a few days or a week in.

Anyway, I also enjoyed the espionage focus, the diving bell, the dog, the Suez/Red Sea expedition with its Arab and Turkish flavors. Strange as it may seem, I'm also becoming a bit emotional about the HMS Surprise. Sniff.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Every book gets better

Wonderful story, great continuing characters. Patrick Tull's narration is the best I've heard on any audio book. Start with the first book in this 21 book series and you'll be hooked. It helps to see the movie, Master and Commander, but that script was taken from several books and it omits the important Maturin espionage part of the plots throughout.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Patrick Tull finally defeated!

Finally, an accent (Italian woman), that Patrick Tull cannot do with perfection.

The book is a typical M&C - Jack is sailing around doing Jack things, while the Doctor is up to his capers and collecting organisms.

If you've ever wondered how they can do all that swimming in the ocean and never get attacked by sharks, you're questions are answered in this book. And it's particularly gruesome.....

Very enjoyable listen. The end looked tedious, but was a very big surprise, including the death of a long time character.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Back to Sea! Enough Drama, Let's Sail!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I had worried about a series so long, glad to find the middle still entertains and pleases! I'd reccomend it to anyone with any interest in the sea or period history... quite good!

What other book might you compare Treason's Harbour to and why?

Similar to the last book in style of course, but they also both end abruptly with tense sailing action! Another good one in the series!

Which character – as performed by Patrick Tull – was your favorite?

Killick is always my favorite in all the books... his grumbling always makes me laugh!

If you could take any character from Treason's Harbour out to dinner, who would it be and why?

much tho I'd be tempted to say Jack or Steven, tho he might get tedious, I'd probably most enjoy dinner and drinks with the midshipmen... it would be neat to see them outside of their forced formality with members of rank and I bet they'd tell the best stories!

Any additional comments?

Glad to see this one get back more to the sea side of things... it got bogged down there for a while with ladies, laws, and finances while all my favorite parts are at sea. Glad to read this one as more of a return to the more adventurous and discovering aspects... with some heated battles to get your blood pumping! Much Better By Me!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

Reader is Disappointing

This reader, Patrick Tull, is so concerned with 'authentic' accents that the listener is denied access to O'Brien's delicious syntax. For example, the is nothing in O'Brien's description of Maturin's Catalan-Irish ancestry to indicate that he speaks with a strong Irish brogue. Quite the contrary, Aubrey, in the first book, is not aware that Maturin is Catholic: an Irish brogue would have made Protestantism doubtful.
The reader Simon Vance, on the other hand, read's O'Brien as written, with excellent cadence and rhythm befitting the characters' personality and heritage as suggested in the wonderful text.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Treason's harbour

This book had more with Maturin as a spy as well as the ship's physician. Loved the descriptions of Malta and I followed on the map the land travel across the Suez to the Red Sea. Patrick Tull is a great narrator. Can not wait to listen to book 10.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

The Rasping Patrick Tull

I had listened to, or read, the Jack Aubry series narrated by Simon Vance until Treason's Harbor. To my Horror, I found myself not listening to Vance, but to the Always Rasping, Often Slurping, Patrick Tull, who destroys the otherwise wonderful book. Often Tull will not change, or at least not seem to change, tone for different characters. Certainly his attempt at different genders is not just weak, but somewhat sickening as all women sound like crones with a 3 pack/day smoking habit.

Why all the Audible versions of the series are available only with Tull as narrator, yet CD versions are available with Vance is somewhat mysterious, but it is a cheap substitute to be sure. I will write Audible to see what can be done about this scandal, but even then someone needs to be flogged.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

My New Favourite

I love all of the Aubrey/Maturin Series but this books storyline was surprising and has added more of a desire for the next books in the series.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

amazing series

what an amazing gift the author has given us. tull was spot on. 3rd time listening through the series.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

One of the simple pleasures in life

Reading the Aubrey Maturin series has been one of the great joys of my reading life. Listening to Patrick Tull read them is like magic. It is the combination of two unique talents - O'Brian and Tull perfectly suited. Listening is an experience that transcends audiobooks and historical fiction to such a degree it cannot be adequately described.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful