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Summary
Summary
Sailing in the Caribbean, Captain Alan Lewrie, RN, is once again pursuing a chimera.
A rich French prize ship he'd left at anchor at Dominica has gone missing, along with six of his sailors. What starts as a straightforward search for it, and them, from Hispaniola to Barbados, far down the Antilles, leads Lewrie to a gruesome discovery on the Dry Tortugas and to a vile cabal of the most pitiless and depraved pirates ever to sail under the "Jolly Roger" . . . and the suspicion that one of his trusted hands just may be the worst of them all
Against his will--again--the usually irrepressible Lewrie is made his superiors' "cat's-paw" once more, and his covert mission this time is to go up the Mississippi in enemy-held Spanish Louisiana to the romantic but sordid port of New Orleans in search of pirates and prize, where one false step could betray Lewrie and his small party as spies. Beguilements, betrayal, and death lurk 'round every corner of the Vieux Carre, and it's up to Lewrie's quick but cynical to win the day wits for their survival and wreak a very personal vengeance on his foes
Author Notes
Dewey Lambdin was born in 1945. He received a degree in film and television production from Montana State University in 1969. He worked for local television stations and in advertising. After being laid off, he started writing fiction. His first novel, The King's Coat, was published in 1989. He is the author of the Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures series and What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This 12th installment of the Alan Lewrie naval adventure series sends the British captain to 1799 New Orleans in pursuit of pirates. Unlike the manly, ship-shape society aboard his frigate, New Orleans seems dominated by seductive women, especially the coquettish pirate ringleader Charit?, who is plotting an insurrection against Louisiana's slothful Spanish rulers that will reunite it with Republican France and forestall a takeover by the uncouth but energetic Americans. Crying "laisser les bons temps rouler," Charit? fights for her right " `to be French... to take joy in being sans moralit?' "; for her, the French Revolution the great problem of the naval adventure genre is not a sociopolitical rupture but a new, unconventional defense of traditional Gallic decadence and frivolity against the encroachment of Yankee industriousness. Out of his depth, Lewrie confronts her unruly French femininity the only way he can on dry land through noisy, seven-condom sex marathons ("her pleasure made her squawl out loud... grunting and lowing like a heifer being taken by a rutting bull") undertaken while his associates unravel the various intrigues. Throughout, Lambdin layers on period minutiae of clothing, weapons, customs and patois (" `You cheese-paring bougre!' ") along with accounts of Mississippi valley trade and settlement patterns. A wealth of historical detail and lively, if stereotyped, supporting characters partly make up for the novel's slack plot and overdone sex. Agent, Jake Elwell at Wieser & Wieser. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Twelfth Alan Lewrie adventure (Havoc's Sword, 2003, etc.), this time about a quest for pirates that leads to the fathomless wildernesses of Louisiana. Captain Lewrie is not a man to be trifled with. A born seaman and seasoned commander, he has brought his ship Proteus to the Americas at the onset of the Napoleonic Wars as an "independent" vessel at the service of the Admiralty--the better to engage in wholesale piracy against the French and Spaniards without violating the letter of maritime law. His hunt meets with quick success when he captures a French merchant ship stuffed to the gills with valuable cargo--but he suffers a sharp setback when the prize manages to escape, with several of his crew aboard. A wild goose chase through the Caribbean fails to recover the ship, though Lewrie later rescues his lost crewmen--all save one, who was murdered by the enemy hands. Set on revenge, Lewrie is determined to recapture his prize and deal with the killers. His bloodlust dovetails nicely with the designs of the Foreign Office and Admiralty, who want him to lead an expedition up the Mississippi in Louisiana (then held by Spain) to help establish British control over the region before the Americans beat them to it. The convoluted politics are a distraction from Lewrie's usual ambitions of looking after his men, his reputation, and his fortune, but they result in a roundabout narrative that covers a lot of ground, changing course as often as a skiff in a hurricane. Of course, the real question, as always, is whether the captain will finally win the hand of his beloved Caroline Chiswick. A lot will depend on the booty, naturally, for (as Alexander Pope rightly asked) "what female heart can gold despise?" Every bit as atmospheric and addictive as its predecessors. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
