King's Captain: An Alan Lewrie Naval Adventure

I’m so embarrassed that this gift to my dad wasn’t large print he requires. I tried to get him three books from this series but only one of the three was large print as requested in the search sort filter.

Not entirely unlike an older James Bond film, this ninth book in the Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures starts out with a bang, or rather, the notable Battle of Cape St. Vincent (in 1797) where Lewrie is pretty much dragged along into glory with Nelson, winning him a nice shiny medal... but also, sadly, losing him the HMS Jester, which, after three years at sea needs a re-fitting and a new Commander, as Lewrie is slated to make Post Captain. Happily, Lewrie is reunited with his family after that long absence, but typically begins to chafe a bit at domestic life on the farm. When orders come from the Admiralty, he's guiltily anxious to get to sea again. He's assigned to a gorgeous new frigate, the Proteus, however, the ship has begun to have an odd history already--something worrisome to superstitious seamen, and Lewrie has to deal with an entirely new and untried crew. And then comes the mass mutinies in the Channel and the Nore and it looks as if things are starting out under a very unlucky star for the new Captain and the new ship... After reading nine books, I (and others) would either have to be masochists or we'd have to be confirmed fans of this series, and I'm all for reading for pleasure, not pain! I love this series. Reading each book is like getting together with an old friend who is just too much fun to ignore. Lewrie remains very human and flawed and essentially likable, with a few truly admirable traits. His life is full of adventure and it reveals a glimpse of a fascinating period with many people and forces at work. And Lewrie's love of the sea and the Royal Navy shipboard life continues to come through to add to the pleasure. I can't wait to read more!

Dewey's works are always fun to read. I look forward to each of his offerings with great pleasure.

I have most of the Dewey Lambdin books and like all of them and love several of them. I'd write more reviews but Michael K. Smith usually puts it better than I could. That said, King's Captain demonstrates a good author doing a first-rate job of illuminating the history of the industrial revolution, the enclosures, the displacement of vast numbers of British citizens (Okay, subjects) in the early 1800s. Lambdin's naval officer Alan Lewrie does not depart from his character, and yet he cannot help but observe the inequities that prompt the mutiny at the Nore. The reader is in effect seeing a remarkable period of history through the eyes of a consistently realized character. Note that Lambdin was once a producer of TV news. Occasionally I find his writing captures a scene like a video camera. It is a delightful find even among the many rigorous researchers who write military fiction from this Napoleonic era.

It's Valentine's Day, 1797, and the JESTER sloop under Commander Alan Lewrie is prowling behind the line-of-battle ships as Admiral Jervis seeks to close with the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent. And when Captain Horatio Nelson goes against orders in breaking out to pursue his own instincts against an enemy division, Lewrie gets sucked into the action against his much better judgment. But Nelson's success gets him promoted Rear Admiral and Lewrie, from pure dumb luck combined with a willingness to take a chance when necessary, ends up being made post and is given PROTEUS, a spanking-new frigate -- with a perhaps mystical personality. And that's just about all the naval action you'll find in this ninth in the series, but that's because history has once again caught Lewrie up, in the form of the widespread mutinies at Spithead and the Nore. Lambdin does an excellent job of placing these close-to-revolutionary events in the context of the times: High taxation, soaring prices for consumer goods, industrial revolution and continued low wages for those not involved in it, and an increasingly repressive Tory government. Denied by circumstances the usual privilege of taking a core of favored crewmen from his last command to his new one, he must learn his way around not only a new ship and new responsibilities but an entirely new group of subordinates. And cope with the mutiny when it comes to him. And deal with his wife and family. And cope with the notion of his rapscallion father living next door. Not to mention all those women in his past! I suspect this installment may disappoint those who merely want blood and action and don't care about "real" history, but I enjoyed it a great deal.

Patrick O'Brian set the tone and future development of his masterful seafaring series in book two, "Post Captain", and Dewey Lambdin appears to have chosen to change tack and emulate the master's style and direction here in book nine of his fine series. In "King's Captain", he and his publishers seem to have decided to grab the opportunity to move towards filling the void left by Mr. O'Brian's passing. Previously we were presented with a rollicking naval adventure series; now we seem to be settling into a more subtle and complex view of our hero and the social and political events of the time. In this installment, Alan Lewrie joins Horatio Nelson in glory at the Battle of Cape Saint Vincent, is finally promoted to post-captain, spends a lot of time attempting to adjust to home, hearth, wife and children before being rescued from this ambivilant and stagnant life by the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore. Not much else happens, but this consciously slower pace allows us to watch Lewrie's personal development and Lambdin's literary development as much more attention is placed on period detail, language, pun and allusion to the delight of O"Brian fans. Loved the "Are You Being Served?" schtick, though perhaps a slim paintbrush rather than a trowel might have even improved the application. One criticism: stop with the "quotation marks" around each charming "period" word; we Aubrey/Maturin fans can handle this stuff straight. Fans of this feisty series, don't worry! "Ram-Cat" Lewrie is still handy with pistol and sword, Lambdin's tongue remains firmly in his cheek throughout and he makes no claims to picking up any other author's mantle, but I for one am loving it! "Three Cheers...!"...