-
The Surgeon's Mate
- Aubrey-Maturin Series, Book 7
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $25.18
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home by despatch vessel to bring the news of their latest victory to the government. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought in the French intelligence network in the New World, and the attentions of two privateers soon become menacing. The chase that follows through the fogs and shallows of the Grand Banks is as thrilling, as tense, and as unexpected in its culmination as anything Patrick O'Brian has written.
Then, among other things, follows a shipwreck and a particularly sinister internment in the notorious Temple Prison in Paris. Once again, the tigerish and fascinating Diana Villiers redresses the balance in this man's world of seamanship and war.
More from the same
Related to this topic
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
A Murder to Remember
- By: Brynn Kelly
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Max Roll
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Austen fan Amelia Bennett sneaks away from a dull tour of an English country manor, only to run into a man more dashing than Mr. Darcy himself. About to lose his ancestral home to family debts, charming aristocrat Tom Calder invites his American guest to join him in drinking his way through the estate’s priceless wine collection. But when they wake in his bed the next morning, they’re convinced that in their drunken haze they witnessed a murder. Problem is, the body has vanished and no one believes them.
-
-
A great listen!
- By Lynessa Huntley on 03-05-24
By: Brynn Kelly
-
Dietrich
- By: Don Winslow
- Narrated by: Ed Harris
- Length: 1 hr and 11 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s the summer of ’77 in New York City, and the only thing more unnerving than the scorching heatwave is the rampant murder, leaving washed-up homicide detective Richard Dietrich on edge. When Dietrich investigates a brutal mob hit the brass doesn’t want him to solve, he goes from phoning it in to getting in over his head. Caught up in a mysterious second homicide with an even more perplexing perpetrator, Dietrich starts to second guess his instincts—and his memory—as he searches for answers at the bottom of a bottle.
-
-
Love the narration, the story and the ending-even if it was rough
- By Jonathan Coash on 04-08-24
By: Don Winslow
-
The Justice
- By: James Patterson, Aaron Cooley
- Narrated by: Sanaa Lathan, David Rasche, Susan Kelechi Watson, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Justice Beth Garner (Sanaa Lathan) just landed the appointment of a lifetime—a seat on the Supreme Court. Now a mysterious company is blackmailing her for her vote on a landmark case. Caught up in the checkered past of her hero and mentor, Chief Justice Clayton Erlenborn, Beth must cunningly maneuver through a dangerous web of secrets, deception, and cold-blooded murder. Armed with only her moral compass and unflinching nerve, she’s up against a sinister world full of undercover agents, domestic terrorists, and black ops assassins—all of whom want her to comply or die.
-
-
So good!
- By Rachel Johnson on 02-24-24
By: James Patterson, and others
-
The Rip
- By: Holly Craig
- Narrated by: Carly Foxx, Shalom Brune-Franklin
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Luxury villas on hot white sand, views for miles over turquoise water. Flawless hostess Penny gathers guests to an island for her husband’s birthday celebrations. But she soon regrets inviting self-obsessed Eloise. When a child vanishes on the night of the party, their perfect island weekend is ripped apart. Even paradise harbours murky secrets… Has he been taken? Has he drowned? In the panic to find any trace, Penny casts about for someone to blame—even if that person is her own daughter, Rosie. Even clear waters descend to pitch black.
-
-
Intriguing, Engaging, AND BEST NARATORS EVER
- By Hadassah on 03-12-24
By: Holly Craig
-
Verity
- By: Colleen Hoover
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson, Amy Landon
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of best-selling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read.
-
-
intriguing but skip if triggered by child abuse
- By Amazon Customer on 05-16-19
By: Colleen Hoover
-
George Orwell’s 1984
- An Audible Original adaptation
- By: George Orwell, Joe White - adaptation
- Narrated by: Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo, Andrew Scott, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 27 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.
-
-
A Revelation!
- By wotsallthisthen on 04-07-24
By: George Orwell, and others
-
A Murder to Remember
- By: Brynn Kelly
- Narrated by: Brittany Pressley, Max Roll
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jane Austen fan Amelia Bennett sneaks away from a dull tour of an English country manor, only to run into a man more dashing than Mr. Darcy himself. About to lose his ancestral home to family debts, charming aristocrat Tom Calder invites his American guest to join him in drinking his way through the estate’s priceless wine collection. But when they wake in his bed the next morning, they’re convinced that in their drunken haze they witnessed a murder. Problem is, the body has vanished and no one believes them.
-
-
A great listen!
- By Lynessa Huntley on 03-05-24
By: Brynn Kelly
-
Dietrich
- By: Don Winslow
- Narrated by: Ed Harris
- Length: 1 hr and 11 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It’s the summer of ’77 in New York City, and the only thing more unnerving than the scorching heatwave is the rampant murder, leaving washed-up homicide detective Richard Dietrich on edge. When Dietrich investigates a brutal mob hit the brass doesn’t want him to solve, he goes from phoning it in to getting in over his head. Caught up in a mysterious second homicide with an even more perplexing perpetrator, Dietrich starts to second guess his instincts—and his memory—as he searches for answers at the bottom of a bottle.
-
-
Love the narration, the story and the ending-even if it was rough
- By Jonathan Coash on 04-08-24
By: Don Winslow
-
The Justice
- By: James Patterson, Aaron Cooley
- Narrated by: Sanaa Lathan, David Rasche, Susan Kelechi Watson, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Justice Beth Garner (Sanaa Lathan) just landed the appointment of a lifetime—a seat on the Supreme Court. Now a mysterious company is blackmailing her for her vote on a landmark case. Caught up in the checkered past of her hero and mentor, Chief Justice Clayton Erlenborn, Beth must cunningly maneuver through a dangerous web of secrets, deception, and cold-blooded murder. Armed with only her moral compass and unflinching nerve, she’s up against a sinister world full of undercover agents, domestic terrorists, and black ops assassins—all of whom want her to comply or die.
-
-
So good!
- By Rachel Johnson on 02-24-24
By: James Patterson, and others
-
The Rip
- By: Holly Craig
- Narrated by: Carly Foxx, Shalom Brune-Franklin
- Length: 10 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Luxury villas on hot white sand, views for miles over turquoise water. Flawless hostess Penny gathers guests to an island for her husband’s birthday celebrations. But she soon regrets inviting self-obsessed Eloise. When a child vanishes on the night of the party, their perfect island weekend is ripped apart. Even paradise harbours murky secrets… Has he been taken? Has he drowned? In the panic to find any trace, Penny casts about for someone to blame—even if that person is her own daughter, Rosie. Even clear waters descend to pitch black.
-
-
Intriguing, Engaging, AND BEST NARATORS EVER
- By Hadassah on 03-12-24
By: Holly Craig
-
Verity
- By: Colleen Hoover
- Narrated by: Vanessa Johansson, Amy Landon
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of best-selling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read.
-
-
intriguing but skip if triggered by child abuse
- By Amazon Customer on 05-16-19
By: Colleen Hoover
-
The River Man
- By: R. B. Croft
- Narrated by: Dominic West
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Clem knows every inch of Watersmeet like the back of his hand. After all, he’s controlled crime here for most of his career. But after a shock murder, he meets jaundiced yellow eyes shining out of the darkness beyond the houses on the village’s eerie southern slopes, and everything he thought he knew about the place is thrown into question. Clem’s grown up with local legends, just like everyone else. But could the River Man be real, and might this creature be behind the recent mysterious killings?
-
-
Nice & Easy
- By Britt on 04-14-24
By: R. B. Croft
-
We Play Games
- By: Sarah A. Denzil
- Narrated by: Billie Piper, Dan Stevens, Shane Zaza, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the rules turn deadly, winning is everything. Only available from Audible, a gripping psychological thriller from the author of Silent Child, Saving April, and The Broken Ones. Perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, Lisa Jewell and Paula Hawkins. The perfect couple. The perfect marriage. The perfect game. Effie and Ben May have everything. Success. Beauty. Glamour. But beneath the charming smiles and expensive clothes, a twisted game is in progress. A game for which only they know the rules.
-
-
Two hours left
- By Cyndi on 01-17-24
By: Sarah A. Denzil
-
Husband and Wife
- By: K. L. Slater
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My husband and I are fighting for our lives in hospital after a terrible car accident. But despite my pain, all I can think about is what our families will find behind our front door. The scarf that has been all over the news, belonging to a dead young woman with honey-coloured hair. I have to speak to the police before my husband can. I’m drifting in and out of consciousness, but when I hear my wife talking to the police, accusing me of the murder of an innocent woman, a cold fear grips me. I know I’ve got a temper.
-
-
Good twists
- By Susan Wiegert on 12-25-23
By: K. L. Slater
-
The Narrator
- By: K. L. Slater
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett, Kristin Atherton
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the call came it seemed like the answer to my prayers. My career as a voice actor had been over for months and me and my little girl Scarlet were living back at my mum’s place. I felt like a failure professionally—and with Scarlet having problems at school, as a parent as well. So, when I was asked to narrate a new book by disappeared novelist Philippa Roberts I jumped at the chance, even if it meant leaving Scarlet with my ex, Hugo, for a few weeks. Hugo, with his perfect new home and his perfect new girlfriend Saskia. But this isn’t a dream come true. It’s a nightmare.
-
-
Love but it's a production issue!
- By Mary on 09-02-22
By: K. L. Slater
-
The Girlfriend
- By: K.L. Slater
- Narrated by: Clare Corbett
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The doorbell rings, just days after my beloved husband’s sudden death. I don’t recognise the woman on our doorstep, with her blonde highlights, a diamond bracelet identical to my own and a bouncing baby boy in her arms. As I show her inside, I notice her eyes grow wide as she takes in our spacious hallway, and the big squashy sofas that we all used to pile on. She glances at the silver-framed family photos and my little daughter hiding behind my skirts. She looks at me, her blue eyes serious. ‘I’m sorry’ she says. ‘I am your husband’s girlfriend. And this is his son.'
-
-
Uh, what?
- By Karyn Cavanaugh on 02-22-23
By: K.L. Slater
-
Artemis
- By: Andy Weir
- Narrated by: Rosario Dawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.
-
-
A ferrari with no motor
- By will on 11-18-17
By: Andy Weir
What listeners say about The Surgeon's Mate
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Taylor Britton
- 03-09-20
naval action and spycraft in balance
now, almost halfway through the series, we have jack's naval action and stephens spycraft nearing perfect balance.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jefferson
- 01-15-17
Fine Writing, Great Characters, Immersive World
The Surgeon's Mate (1980) is the 7th novel in Patrick O'Brian's addicting series of age of sail novels about the lives, loves, and careers of the British navy captain Jack Aubrey and the naturalist-spy-ship's surgeon Stephen Maturin. It takes place during the War of 1812 and begins with the HMS Shannon sailing into Halifax in Nova Scotia with its American prize frigate the Chesapeake, captured after the ferocious fifteen-minute battle that closed the sixth novel, The Fortune of War (1979). Although ecstatic about finally having a British naval victory over the Americans to celebrate, Jack is afflicted by a badly healing broken arm, the uncertain state of his financial affairs back home in England, and absent letters from his wife Sophie. Stephen is pleased to have escaped from Boston with a passel of helpful American intelligence documents, including names of American spies among the British, and with Diana Villiers, the woman he has loved for years (and the previous six books in the series), and who has finally agreed to marry him. However, despite the obvious benefits of marrying Stephen, including regaining her British citizenship, she is getting cold feet, and Stephen himself is having to deal with a kind of void where his passion and love for her once burned.
This book shares the strong points of the earlier entries in the series. First, without boring veteran readers O'Brian efficiently brings new readers up to speed, here by having Jack and Stephen report about their recent actions to their superiors and colleagues. Second, O'Brian evokes a believable, fully-realized historical world, that of the Napoleonic wars, with characters thinking, speaking, and acting the way one might expect them to think, speak, and act back then and there, rather than as 20th century people transported to the early 19th century. Third, he excels at making long periods of inaction compelling and then suddenly disrupting them with brief, intense scenes of suspenseful, never repetitive action of various types, in this book ranging from naval battles and storms to covert actions and interrogations. Finally, the deep friendship between the perfectly complementary odd couple, Jack and Stephen, is a pleasure to behold. Jack is huge, florid, loud, emotional, good natured, open; Stephen small, sallow, circumspect, intellectual, misanthropic, secretive. At sea on land, Jack is an instinctive and confident leader aboard a ship; adept ashore, Stephen is quite out of place, if not in the way, aboard a ship. Each calls the other "dear" and "brother," cares about the other's welfare, and thinks the other is somewhat prone to mistakes.
Meanwhile, the wealthy American slave-owning spy-master Johnson, Diana's ex-lover, does not sit idly by while Stephen returns to England with his woman and his intelligence papers, but hires American privateers to try to catch them. Stephen's desire for Catalan independence (he is half Catalan and half Irish) involves him in O'Brian's plot. With the sixth novel, this one completes a kind of dyptich relating to spy matters. The Surgeon's Mate demonstrates how complex international affairs were from the British point of view during the early 19th century: the war of the allies against Napoleon was in a critical stage when America suddenly declared war on England, forcing the British to divert crucial naval and other resources from the European theater to the American. It also takes the relationship between Stephen and Diana into a new phase.
Into all that, O'Brian introduces a fun new character, a handsome, young, Lithuanian military officer called Jagiello, expert in multiple languages, brilliant at chess, unfailingly cheerful, somewhat prone to pratfalls, the object of intense attraction to any woman who sees him (Jack can never quite understand what women see in Jagiello, who can't even shave yet, compared to more brawny and hirsute British officers). Jagiello, who knows even less about nautical matters than Stephen, permits O'Brian to use Stephen to tell us about lee dangers and club-hauling, while Stephen (still no maritime expert), permits O'Brian to use Jack to tell us how to use a clock to locate where a ship is east and west.
Stephen's bracing (somewhat bitter) insights into human nature continue to give pleasure:
-"We are fallible creatures, Jack, and adepts at self-deception."
-"There is something in the misfortunes of others that does not altogether displease us."
-"I know nothing of the law, except that when a plain man comes into contact with it, he is likely to suffer extremely in his purse and spirit, however sound the cause."
O'Brian writes witty and vivid descriptions of places and people:
"Gothenburg, a melancholy town, most of it quite recently burnt, inhabited by tall spare melancholiacs dressed in grey wool and much given to drinking and self-murder (the river brought three suicides past the Ariel during her brief stay), but kind to strangers if not to themselves."
And authentic, vivid, and poetic descriptions of sailing ships:
"They [a large convoy] threaded the long channel in the night, scarcely touching a sheet or a brace; and from the shore they looked like some prodigious constellation enormously rich in stars, that had strayed to the surface of the sea."
He just makes it so thrilling to imagine oneself on a sailing ship in the early 19th century: "The yards rose, the sheets were tallied aft, the billowing sails stood taut, and the Ariel, surging ahead, plucked her anchor from the ground."
Splendid audiobook reader Ric Jerrom continues to be the Voice of O'Brian (and Jack and Stephen) for me.
Fans of age of sail fiction, authentic and compelling historical fiction with complex and human characters and much thought about life, should like the Aubrey and Maturin books like this one--but should begin with the first, Master and Commander (1969).
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful