The king's privateer

Alan Lewrie, a randy rating of the rutting sort, once again finds himself on the high seas, fighting the Frogs for fun, fortune, and fornication. This, the fourth log of his adventures, places him a few years after and on the opposite side of the globe from his previous escapades at the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 (The French Admiral, BKL Ap 15 90). Alas, sporting lassies are rare sights in Calcutta and the South China Sea, but there is still plenty of masculine adventure to make up the deficit. Lewrie and his English mates crew the Telesto, an armed ship sailing under thin commercial cover for the purpose of fighting the French. After some on-shore intrigue and mayhem, the real effusion of blood results in English victory and a rise of Lewrie's stock in the eyes of the Admiralty. They next want to send him to prey on the upstart Americans, yet memories of that fetching Caroline Chiswick still beckon . . . . Abaft, ye scalawags, and clear the deck for the fifth installment of Lambdin's series, an innocent indulgence for men weened on the Hardy Boys. ~--Gilbert Taylor

In this fourth book of the series begun with The King's Coat ( LJ 5/1/89), Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, continues his adventures in the Far East. Assigned to a ship disguised as a merchant vessel to check on French activities among local pirates, Alan finds plenty of action in Canton, Calcutta, and the islands of the South China Sea. He even runs into his hated father, Sir Hugo, but the two old enemies gain mutual respect as they are compelled to work together. Lambdin provides a well-rounded plot and fascinating, well-researched evocations of late 18th-century Oriental trade cities, but the graphic gore of the frequent battle scenes becomes increasingly unpleasant. More glory and romance, coupled with the already accurate descriptions of period tactics and weaponry, would go down better with readers of this genre than the welter of blood and guts. Recommended with this one reservation for public libraries.-- C. Robert Nixon, MLS, Lafayette, Ind. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Lambdin's lusty Royal Naval Lieutenant Alan Lewrie (The King's Commission, 1991, etc.) sails for the East Indies, where French privateers have dared to tamper with the profits of Britain's opium trade. Having at last foiled his father's plot to disinherit him of his mother's fortune, Lt. Lewrie is in London and in the chips, furnishing a flat and enjoying the favors of at least three shameless London ladies while paying semi-serious court to his virtuous colonial girlfriend, Caroline Chiswick. But the life of ease and easy virtue ends abruptly with a call from the Admiralty. Alan's services are needed immediately. He's to join a secret, unofficial mission, sailing with the crew of Telesto, an armed merchantman bound for India, where the august East India Company has fallen victim to French privateering. It's actually not a bad time to leave town: the pretty little housemaid Alan's seduced has announced her pregnancy, and Caroline Chiswick seems unduly interested in matrimony. In India, Alan is reunited with the last man in the world he wants to see--his unspeakable cad of a father, Sir Hugo. But Sir Hugo has gone off the sauce, given up paternal treachery, and returned to soldiering, living the good life in a pocket palace complete with complaisant dancing girls. A reconciliation is effected, and father and son sail for Macao, Canton, the South China Sea, and a series of rousing battles on sea and land with thousands of fierce native pirates and their decadent French masters. Irresistible.

In this fourth book of the series begun with The King's Coat ( LJ 5/1/89), Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, continues his adventures in the Far East. Assigned to a ship disguised as a merchant vessel to check on French activities among local pirates, Alan finds plenty of action in Canton, Calcutta, and the islands of the South China Sea. He even runs into his hated father, Sir Hugo, but the two old enemies gain mutual respect as they are compelled to work together. Lambdin provides a well-rounded plot and fascinating, well-researched evocations of late 18th-century Oriental trade cities, but the graphic gore of the frequent battle scenes becomes increasingly unpleasant. More glory and romance, coupled with the already accurate descriptions of period tactics and weaponry, would go down better with readers of this genre than the welter of blood and guts. Recommended with this one reservation for public libraries.-- C. Robert Nixon, MLS, Lafayette, Ind. Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information.