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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not Like Flashman, December 3, 2005
I bought this book because it promised to be a naval analog of George McDonald Fraser's FLASHMAN. It was not but I was not disappointed.
The books takes place on the Kentish coast during the Napoleonic wars. Lieutenant Martin Jerrold has been sent there in disgrace. While he was at the battle of Trafalgar, he took no active part. He managed to get himself stuck in the hold of his ship and lost out on any chance of notice or distinction. So it is that he is sent to work with a revenue cutter and help suppress the thriving smuggling trade. He is only there for a single night, drunk, before he manages to get into trouble. While stepping out to relieve himself, he wanders into a smuggling operation gone wrong. A man is killed and the Lieutenant becomes the prime suspect. He finds himself in a situation where he must not only carry out his duties to suppress the smuggling trade, he must use all of his free time to try and clear his name before the deadline runs out. His bad reputation, bad luck and French intrigue do not help matters.
The protagonist of the book is not cut from heroic cloth but he is not the complete poltroon that the Harry Flashman character is; he does not seek trouble for its own sake. Instead, he is a bumbler who has bad luck. When the chips are down, though, he does possess a modicum of honor. He is not a character we like to revile. Instead, he is one with whom it is all too easy to identify.
This book is not as funny or exciting as the FLASHMAN series but neither is it as strained and contrived. It is a good read and I look forward to reading more.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There Was Hornblower, Aubrey/Maturin, Now Jerrold, October 27, 2004
There was Hornblower, then Aubrey/Maturin, now comes Lt. Martin Jerrold, not cut from the same cloth at all. It starts out with him waking up from a hangover, a state in which he had gotten through the Battle of Trafalgar.
This though is a murder mystery set in the same time frame. Lt. Jerrold is quickly suspected of murdering a British sailor. His new commanding officer, and the magistrate would see him hanged. They probably would if they could identify the corpse. His long suffering Uncle at the Admiralty gives him two weeks to solve the murder.
Written in the same style as the other books, this one is even better at painting a picture of the life of the time. Life at Dover, a center of smuggling is presented as dramatically different than life at sea as in the other books. The people are more varied, the situations more surprising.
This is supposed to be the first of a trilogy. Now the problem is waiting for the second volume. I also wonder if Edwin Thomas realizes just what he has created here. He may well be writing of the hapless Lt. Jerrold for a lifetime.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed by Flashman comparison, July 13, 2006
This review is from: The Blighted Cliffs: Book One of the Reluctant Adventures of Lieutenant Martin Jerrold (Paperback)
I bought this book based on a review which claimed that Martin Jerrold was a "nautical Flashman." I also thought that the opening lines were clever and well written, and certainly sounded like something Flashy would say. I found as I continued to read, however, that the witty tone of those opening lines soon disappeared. What I was treated to thereafter was a rather mundane historical mystery novel with an uninteresting main character. Both Harry Flashman and Martin Jerrold are anti-heroes who drink too much and find themselves falling into trouble, but the comparison ends there. Flashman is a coward, a bully, a toady, and a letch; he is a truly bad person, but he makes you like him despite these characteristics because of the humor and candor with which he tells his extraordinary tales. And George MacDonald Fraser (the author of the Flashman novels) has given Flashy such a wonderful voice that half the fun of reading the novels is not just what he says but how he says it. Martin Jerrold has virtually none of this saving humor, and he really isn't that bad a person. He is even somewhat honorable, something that could never be said about Flashman. So, if you want to read a Flashman-like character, stick to the original. If you want to read an historical murder mystery, one that is not bad, but certainly not great, then this might be what you are looking for.
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