The Surgeon's Mate

By: Patrick O'Brian

Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home to bring news of their latest victory. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he caused to the French intelligence network in the New World and the British packet carrying them is shadowed by two American privateers.

The chase that follows through the fogs and shallows of the Grand Banks is as tense, and as unexpected in its culmination of this seventh Aubrey/Maturin adventure, as anything Patrick O'Brian has ever written.

"Vividly detailed 19th-century settings and dramatic tension punctuated with flashes of wry humor make O'Brian's nautical adventure a splendid treat." (Publishers Weekly)

The Surgeon's Mate

Another superb book from Patrick O'Brian full of rich historical detail, well drawn characters and a strong storyline. The book is beautifully read by one of the top two readers on this site, Tim Pigott-Smith (the other is Frank Muller - see A Tale of Two Cities) who effortlessly manages to weave the varied characters and story into a compelling whole. Such a pity Piggot-Smith was not chosen for the unabridged Patrick O'Brian stories also on this site.

The best so far!

I've been picking titles from the Aubrey/Machurin series more or less at random from what's available at my local public library and on Audible.com. (Beware --- many of the O'Brian titles on Audible are abridged! What butchery!). This is the best yet.

The story is varied, with much more charcter development that the previous books that I have read in this series, but no less a supply of nautical detail and seafaring suspense. And there are several suprising turns in the plot. I highly recommend this book, whether or not you have read others in the series.

struggled with the narrator's interpretation

I struggled with the narrator's interpretation of the characters. returned the book and selected the alternative narrator.