Customer Reviews

Dead Reckoning

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The year is 1805 and England is at war. At the end of the last novel, "Touch and Go," Richard DeLancey was a commander returning home to England as a peace treaty was signed. This novel (copyright 1978) finds DeLancey married to Fiona, a former actress. He has just been brought back onto active service, promoted to captain, and been given the older 32-gun frigate Laura for service at the Cape, in the Far East, and in the Indian Ocean. He must part from his young wife for an unknown period of time.

He has the usual assignments, including convoy escort, and is given a special assignment to chase down a French privateer. He also seeks his long-lost brother. He has exploits in escorting a convoy of East Indiamen attacked by French ships, and participating in the capture of Mauritius (repeated to some extent by the fictional James Aubrey in later novels written by Patrick O'Brien). After taking command of a different frigate, DeLancey finds a creative way to bring the ship's crew up to full strength (losses from disease and battles had been high). He then wins honors for himself and his crew in a final confrontation with the French.

I hate to write a bad review. However, I want to spare the potential buyer of a waste of his/her money.

I love these types of stories, and I have all of the Forester, O'Brian, Kent, Lambdin, etc. novels. I bought this whole series, simply assuming that I would like it. Unfortunately, I could barely force myself to finish the first one. Yet, I thought that the series and writing might grow in the later volumes, so I persevered. I was wrong. The second and third ones were just as bad, and I just can't force myself to read them anymore.

God bless Mr. Parkinson, I'm sure he was a wonderful man and he can surely write better than I can, but his fiction writing is horrible. One reviewer of an early volume called it "wooden," and that's what his writing is. There's no depth to the stories or the characters - there's no excitement. Mr. Parkinson wrote many books on business management, and his novels, sadly, read like one of those books.

Again, I'm sorry to write a bad review, but please do yourself a favor and find one of these at a library before you shell out your money for the series.

This author ranks with the best of the Napoleonic sea war authors. As good as any of them out there. need to read this series from the start as each book uses its predessessor for its basis