Customer Reviews

The Blighted Cliffs: Book One of the Reluctant Adventures of Lieutenant Martin Jerrold

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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.

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.

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.

Slow to start off, but worth plowing through the first chapter or so. I found the 3rd book of this trilogy and am fascinated by the authors research and take on events.

It is entirely possible that Lt. Martin Jerrold may be the bad luck magnet that the crewmen think; nor do they hold it against him, they are just glad he's got the luck and not them. Some of the luck is due to a strong partiality to alcohol. He is possibly the only man who was at Trafalgar who came out of it with no honor, having been trapped in the hold during the battle, after a drunken night. Now he's been relegated to a cutter assigned to patrol against smugglers out of Dover under a Captain who is also dealing with a disreputable past and out to prove himself. Jerrold doesn't even wish to prove himself, he's just trying not to be sent off to the Indies in ignominy by his uncle in the Admiralty.

Unfortunately, in the pre-dawn before he's due to report to his new assignment, Jerrold wakes to find a strange woman in his bed, he's got the worst aching head and when he goes out to relieve himself and goes for a little walk on the beach to get some air, he finds a body and is immediately suspected of murder and thrown into gaol. He gets a reprieve only because there's not enough proof--and his uncle writes him orders to clear his name or else!

The mystery is a good one, involving smugglers and treason and treasure. There's a bit of sea action, as they are on the Channel and the French as well as the smugglers ply their way back and forth. But Jerrold is on land much of the time, finding trouble there as well.

Jerrold is hapless, but not stupid nor a rogue. Despite his outrageous luck and lack of wisdom, he's pretty much an average guy. Put an average guy in certain scenarios and he'll not do much better. Despite himself, and his inclination to not exert him brain or his courage overly, he can put a few facts together. That, and fortune turning a bit for him, keeps him from total disaster on the blighted cliffs of Dover.

I enjoyed watching Jerrold being forced through adventures he'd rather have avoided at all cost. The author does a good job in keeping Jerrold realistic and sympathetic enough not to be a total buffoon and his adventures slightly humorous and yet with a sense of danger and import balancing it out. I'll certainly be looking for the sequels, curious to see what happens to Jerrold next.

I am a a lover of all maritime and Napoleonic wars fiction and I have to say, although this first installment in the series is a bit lighter and not as serious as many others, this is truly a delightful romp and nothing but swashbuckling fun. This book has everything you need for jolly good entertainment. Action, adventure, romance, espionage, intrigue, mystery, mischief and mayhem. Buckle up and enjoy the ride. !! Wonderful real believable characters, a hero you just have to love with all his charm, failures and flaws, a story you can't put down from page one to the end. Bravo for Edwin Thomas