Alan Lewrie - 05 - The Gun Ketch

✍ Scribed by Dewey Lambdin

• Publisher: Distributed to the trade by National Book Network, McBooks Press
• Year: 1993;2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 253 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN: 1590134176

✦ Synopsis

From Publishers Weekly

Although we're accustomed to more rollicking tales about the Royal Navy's Lt. Alan Lewrie than Lambdin offers here--in the first scene our hero is being married, "quaking but not completely in terror of his bachelorhood's demise"--this followup to The King's Privateer is still a grand, satisfying yarn. Newlyweds Alan and Caroline set sail in 1786 for the Bahamas, where he'll captain HMS Alacrity to enforce the Navigation Acts. The handsome young Lewries are rapturously, carnally happy and Alan's occasional sea tours only hone their appetites for each other. But there are snakes in Eden. Alan finds himself in trouble with authority when he tries to fight smugglers honorably, and simultaneously to suppress jealousy about Caroline. Lambdin throws in a lot of ripping sea and land battles, a slew of vicious pirates and smugglers, a couple of nasty nemeses and one very dangerous corrupt official. Alan's triumph is only one of many things to cheer about--series fans as well as newcomers will relish Lambdin's unerring depiction of Navy politicking, the niceties of Nassau society (including the hierarchy of color among natives) and, in fact, all the rich details of late-18th-century life at sea and shore.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This fifth book in a series of 18th-century sea thrillers (following The King's Privateer , Donald I. Fine, 1992) continues the adventures of Royal Navy Officer Alan Lewrie. Posted to command the two-masted, ten-gun Alacrity with its new crew and officers, Lewrie is to sail to the Bahamas to protect trade and suppress piracy. Before leaving England, he takes a wife, whose presence aboard the Alacrity serves to curb his previous hell-raising lifestyle. Patrols in the Bahamas provide the focus of a story involving piracy, corruption in high places, and naval action at sea. Finally, Lewrie is able to bring the notorious pirate "Calico Jack" Finney to justice. Lambdin's work is comparable to that of masters such as C.S. Forester in its technical detail, but it is distinguished by the interesting use of bawdy humor and the fact that the author is an American. Recommended for public libraries.
- Harold N. Boyer, Marple P.L., Broomall, Pa.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.