The Surgeon's Mate [Paperback]

British naval officer Jack Aubrey and surgeon Stephen Maturin, with his great love, Diana Villiers, speed home to England with news of their latest victory over the Americans. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought in the French intelligence network in the New World, and the trio run into trouble when they attract the menacing attention of two American privateers. The chase that follows through the fogs and shallows of the Grand Banksand the highs and lows of the love affair between Maturin and Villiersis as tense, stirring, and unexpected in its culmination as anything Patrick OBrian has written in his epic series. It has been said that this series is some of the finest historical fiction of our time....Aubrey and Maturin have been described as better than Holmes and Watson, the equal of Quixote and Panza....All this is true. And the marvel is, it hardly says enough. John Balzar, Theyre funny, theyre exciting, theyre informative. . . . There are legions of us who gladly ship out time and time again under Captain Aubrey. It has been something of a shock to find myself . . . obsessed with Patrick OBrians Napoleonic-era historical novels. . . . What keeps me hooked are the evolving relationships between Jack and Stephen and the women they love.? US