Desolation Island (Aubrey/Maturin)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 039330812X ISBN 13: 9780393308129

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991

"The relationship [between Aubrey and Maturin]...is about the best thing afloat....For Conradian power of description and sheer excitement there is nothing in naval fiction to beat the stern chase as the outgunned Leopard staggers through mountain waves in icy latitudes to escape the Dutch seventy-four."―Stephen Vaughan, Observer

Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend and surgeon Stephen Maturin sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy―and a treacherous disease that decimates the crew. With a Dutch man-of-war to windward, the undermanned, outgunned Leopard sails for her life into the freezing waters of the Antarctic, where, in mountain seas, the Dutchman closes...

Review:

Captain Bligh (yes, the guy from the Bounty) needs to be rescued, and the Royal Navy has the perfect man for the job: Captain Jack Aubrey. With his friend and cloak-and-dagger expert Stephen Maturin in tow, Aubrey sets off for Australia. Several factors, including an attractive spy and a small-scale epidemic, conspire to change his plans, and before long his frigate is being pursued into Antarctic waters by a Dutch man-of-war. Five installments into the series, the Aubrey-Maturin story remains (to quote The Observer) "the best thing afloat since Horatio Hornblower."

From the Inside Flap:

Read by Tim Pigott-Smith
Three cassettes, Approx. 5 hours

The 5th novel in Patrick O'Brian's hugely successful Aubrey/Maturin Series

Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack  Aubrey and his friend and surgeon Stephen Maturin sail the Leopard to Australia with a hold full of convicts.  Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy--and a treacherous disease that decimates the crew.  With a Dutch man-of-war to windward, the under-manned, out-gunned Leopard sails for her life into the freezing waters of the Antarctic where, in mountainous seas, the Duthman closes...