The Hundred Days

By Patrick O'Brian
 320 pages

For the penultimate (though to be fair PO'B may or may not have already decided to carry the series beyond  the 20 he initially planned. I'm not sure) novel this one was pretty lackluster. Jack in the Surprise harasses French shipyards (now that Bonaparte's army is back after his escape from Elba.) Stephen helps to get them burnt by Louis XVIII sympathizers, accelerating the destruction.

Like a few previous novels we are treated to a Stephen adventure (this time with fellow intelligence agent Dr Jacob) in and around Algiers.

There is a short ship battle. No boarding. And really that's the problem with this volume. While it held my interest whilst reading, it was really a bit below average. There wasn't a lot of Jack/Stephen camaraderie. Even previous books with their short (couple of pages) intense battles that end the book at the denouement, when thinking about in memory those were more satisfying than the battle in this book, an okay length ship chase with not much detail of the sailing and shooting.

I really hope that the last book is at least slightly above average to end this wonderfully rich story on a high note.