The Commodore

By Patrick O'Brian
352 pages

After the success of the last big story arc Jack is made Commodore first class and given a squadron to stop the French from liberating Ireland. With a deception mission of stopping slavers in the Benint of Benin. Aka western Africa.

The slave part of the mission goes swimmingly well. Many prizes and money for each person rescued! Then the sailing from Africa to Ireland takes all of a paragraph! I had to go back twice to try and find out how I had missed the sailing back to Ireland. Well I didn't, it just didn't exist.  They catch the French by surprise. Only two ships get away. The rest caught or sunk.

Pretty much all this happens in the last bit of the book. The battle with the French is classic PO'B and only takes up 3 pages or so.

What's the rest of the book made up of? Mostly about Jack stressing out with being a Commodore. Given a couple of ships to be under him, two are trouble. One manned by a sodomite and the other by a flogger who likes shining brass and perfect paint, perpendicular masts, and is no seaman. Neither are much at battle.

Back home, Stephen finds Diana gone. Run away. Padeen and Clarissa and even himself threatened by the Duke of Habachsthal who is the high up mole for the French.

Well unlike the last few books all the strings are tied up in the end. Then Diana forbids Stephen from ever going back to sea. What?

Overall I enjoyed this book. It was a quick read.  Short on fighting and not a whole lot of descriptive sailing, now that Jack is the planner rather than being in charge of the day to day sailing. There was a funny bit where Reade takes a boat within biscuit toss of the rocks racing around a cape, literally tossing a biscuit, to the joy of all the sailors aboard. We see just how valued Stephen is when on the Bellona he finds the medical area so deficient that he threatens to leave if it is not completely altered. Jack and Pullings don't hesitate to make the changes.

An average book in the series. Nothing special, not to memorable. Engrossing while I was reading it.

As the end of 2010 approached I made a push to read only Patrick O'Brian books so that I could get this series finished in two years.  So expect a plethora of PO'B books from here on out.