The Captain's Vengeance (Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures) [Hardcover]

Dewey Lambdin (Author)

Book Description

Series: Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures | Publication Date: October 21, 2004

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 Carré, 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!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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 Charité, 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," Charité fights for her right " 'to be French... to take joy in being sans moralité' "; 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.
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From the Inside Flap

It is early February, 1799, a year of war.


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 usuallyirrepressible 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 Carré, 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!

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (October 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312315473
• ISBN-13: 978-0312315474
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,111,203 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dewey Lambdin is the author of fourteen previous Alan Lewrie novels. A member of the U.S. Naval Institute and a Friend of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, he spends his free time working and sailing (he's been a sailor since 1976). He makes his home in Nashville, Tennessee, but would much prefer Margaritaville or Murrell's Inlet.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Pirates and intrigue in New Orleans, May 9, 2005

By 

Lynn Harnett (Marathon, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Captain's Vengeance (Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures) (Hardcover)

Lambdin's 12th Captain Alan Lewrie adventure begins in 1799 with the sadistic marooning of a small group of sailors on a desolate island in the Dry Tortugas, 70 miles off Key West. The pirates responsible for abandoning the sailors and stealing their boat - a rich prize captured from the French by Capt. Lewrie, Royal Navy - are four young French Creoles from New Orleans. Depraved, idle, rich and spoiled, these two brothers, their beautiful sister and a fourth man, determined to win the girl by proving his bloodlust, have taken up the cause of ousting the Spanish and returning New Orleans to its rightful French masters.

Lewrie, who would very much like to catch these pirates, finds himself down the Mississippi without a boat of his own. He has been ordered on a covert mission to scout out the political landscape and work out the feasibility of a British invasion to take over New Orleans. Posing as a security detail for a wealthy merchant shipper, he soon makes the steamy acquaintance of Charité, the ravishing and wanton female pirate, as well as her brothers and would-be lover, and an American contingent clearly up to the same invasion scouting as Lewrie.

There's a cartoony element to the swashbuckling - lots of "gawping" and "japing" - and the evil characters are particularly, but colorfully, one-dimensional. And the sex scenes are lustily over-the-top. But there's humor too and the historical setting is rich, deep and fascinating. Patrick O'Brian fans may not be satisfied, but those who would just as soon leave the social byplay out of their naval adventure should enjoy it.

Portsmouth Herald

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid Naval Fun, January 1, 2005

By 

Chris F. Wood - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Captain's Vengeance (Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures) (Hardcover)

The series continues with Alan hunting some pirates in New Orleans. It's great stuff if you've been reading the series you wont be disappointed. I even liked it better than the last one. If your new to this series or looking for some tall ship nautical adventure, I recommend starting from the beginning.
Other naval recommendations - James L Nelson; Biddlecomb series "By Force of Arms"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Captain's Vengeance - A Slow Read, July 10, 2006

By 

S. Mann (Middletown, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Captain's Vengeance (Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures) (Hardcover)

I should start by saying I'm a fan of this series, however I've found this novel to be the least entertaining that I've read in this story line. If you have found that you are enjoying the series, and you want to continue the saga, then this is a must read. If however you are sampling one of the books to see how you like the Lewrie novels... don't start here.