The Reverse of the Medal

Jack Aubrey returns from his duties protecting whalers off the South American coast and is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make investments in the City on the strength of supposedly certain information. From there he is led into the half-worlds of the London criminal underground and of government espionage — the province of his friend Stephen Maturin.

Devoted readers of Patrick O’Brian will find here all the brilliance of characterisation and all the sparkle of dialogue they have come to expect from a novelist often described as ‘Jane Austen sur mer’. For those who will read him for the first time there will be the pleasure of discovering a novelist of unique character.