Customer Reviews

A King's Trade: An Alan Lewrie Naval Adventure (Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The French Admiral (2nd book) will probably always be the best book in this series, with the opener `The Kings Coat' a close second. The books that followed were readable but slowly deteriorated until it hit rock bottom with the 2 HMS Jester books (7 & 8 I think).

A King's Trade however has totally rekindled my passion for this series and left me on a high waiting for the 12th book. It is great to know that we are only in the year 1800 and have 15 years left of war/peace for Lambdin to write Lewrie into.

I do not understand a previous reviewers comments about the story not being fully developed and being a prelude to the next novel. The book does have an apt ending and is book 11 in a long series, of course there is a prelude to the next novel. Far from feeling let down, I believe this to be Lambdin best work since the French Admiral. Great writing, good flow of the story and a battle in the end.

Ever since the first of this series came out, with our lad bedding his half sister and getting caught in the proverbial act on page one, he's been called Alan Lurid in our household, and for good reason -- the earlier books were a real romp in misbehaviour, Royal Navy style. Alan boarded and vanquished at least as many young maidens -- and former-maidens -- as enemy ships in these earlier books and you could count on all sorts of action in every title. Then he hooked up with this Caroline character, married her, and his love life pretty much went to hell...kids, house payment, a vast estate to manage, crabby neighbors, and a wife who turned into something of a shrew just because she discovered he's had a few girls in a few ports -- what was she expecting? Well, along comes this latest book and I am hoping he'll recruit a new mistress or two, but no -- Lewrie flirts a bit with an actress in this story but her virtue (if any) remains as pure at the end (so to speak) as when he met her -- no bodices ripped, no panting orgies on this literary cruise. Caroline has him throughly intimidated and I almost expected him to go into counseling. But don't let me talk you out of reading this title -- it's still fun. And wouldn't the sailors of two hundred years ago smile if they could know that, here in the Twenty-First Century that we'd be fascinated with their lives and times?

Would not go to work this morning without turning the last page and then required several hankies and some Visine to do so. 4 out of 5? Well, there must be something better and I'll be ready when I discover it. Lambdin again provides rollicking entertainment, and is a fount of archaic blasphemies and curses. This work is well worth the price and the exciting ride. Dosvadanya

In the late eighteenth century in the Caribbean, Royal Navy Captain Alan Lewrie of the HMS Proteus abducts a dozen slaves from local plantations to ostensibly free them, but actually to work on his ship. His actions cause an international incident, which anger his superiors who believe he is already a loose cannon unable to follow orders.

Foreign Office Emissary Zachariah Twigg offers the obstinate Lewrie a choice between certain court-martial and a possible felony trial for stealing private property or act the role of abolitionist hero from a distance meaning get him out of both sides of the Atlantic. Though his preference is to tell the officious bureaucrat to stick it when the sun does not shine on the British Empire, self preservation supersedes pride. Lewrie agrees to be cast as an anti-slavery champion while escorting merchants and a Russian circus between St. Helena and Cape Town whose star attraction to the recalcitrant Lewrie is the gorgeous Eudoxia.

The feel to the latest Lewrie Royal navy historical tale is more of a prelude to the next novel as the story line does not seem as fully developed as usual. Still the insight into the late nineteenth century navy is deep and fulfilling, but what makes the tale is the way officialdom classified slaves as contraband. Fans of the series will feel a bit letdown though the antihero kicks some French butt as Alan Lewrie's nautical thriller story line seems thin.

Harriet Klausner

Captain Alan Lewrie's fortunes take a dive in this 13th adventure. He's all set to cruise the Caribbean under a friendly superior when the Beauman family go after him for stealing slaves. He actually was guilty of this when, several books previously, his ship the Proteus, was short of crew and a friend convinced him that the Beaumans need to suffer such a jape and also because they mistreat their slaves so badly that Lewrie would have some more than willing crewmen. The old, supposedly retired, Foreign Office spymaster, Zachariah Twigg, aims to keep Lewrie free to be an aid to Britain's cause. Since it's safer if Lewrie is away at sea, he's sent on convoy duty along the coast of Africa. A growing French navy and a Circus ship keep things lively.

I am still having way too much fun reading this series!

I think that this is a very good book. The Author (Dewey Lambdin) has a way of keeping you on the edge of your seat in Anal Lewrie's adventures. He keeps it pretty much to what would have actually happened in the time period. I strongly recommend the authors full series.

The Alan Lewrie sea stories have a less serious, yea rascally, turn to them, that make them more amusing than the usual age-of-fighting-sail novels. Nevertheless, Lambdin follows the serious conventions of the genre, pausing long over the descent from a ship, or getting underway in a captain's gig (his rowboat), the niceties of nasty Hindoo pole weapons, or the novelty of a circus extravaganza afloat--always expressed in archaic naval slang distant even from today's sailors, without a glossary for the lubber. I don't mean to say I don't enjoy reading this sort of story, or puzzling out the jargon, not at all. I just thought it time to organize my thoughts about the formula.

Start the story with some personal, land-based predicament of the hero (everlasting debts, multiple women, or law suits). In a Lewrie story you can be sure it is about women--although recently they are pretty tame--but here there's also a suit against him (carried over from the previous novel) that could end with a rope collar.

Then add some dangerous mission that also happens to get the hero afloat just ahead of his pursuers. If it's a secret mission that makes him expendable as well, so much the better for suspense. Here it's a story of trade, the south Atlantic trade winds, and a plodding traders' convoy of East Indiamen--and one astonishing circus ship! Is that Lambdin's invention from whole-cloth? Have we run out of new events from the Napoleonic Age to reprise in fiction?

Then add a run-in with the enemy (usually the French: I wonder if Frenchmen ever write novels about their navy fighting the sneaky British?). Lambdin's recent novels show show less interest in amorous adventures and greater joy in describing heavy fighting and gore. And of course, he lards events thickly with the minutiae of handling--if not running--a square-rigged ship. Unfortunately, Lambdin is not a Britisher "born to the lingo," so I sense a false scent about this novel, the language subtly overwrought, too much of a muchness. Still, it keeps me reading.

Great seafaring book. I have all the Lewrie books. Mr Lamdin is an exceptional author. One I start reading one his books I am enthralled. I feel like I am there with Captain Lewrie, on and off ship. Will keep buyimg all his books.

I have enjoyed all the Alan Lewrie Naval Adventures previous to "A King's Trade" but this one is outstanding...looking forward to the "his" next adventure...hope I don't have to wait as long.

When a fellow reviewer wrote "Would not go to work this morning without turning the last page and then required several hankies and some Visine to do so." they mirrored my experience almost to a "T".

I have thoroughly enjoied all of Lambdin's Lewrie novels and this one defiantely didn't let me down. In fact, it is at the top of my list of favorites in this line.

My only complaint is that each new book in the series seems to get released later and later. For a long time, the books would release in Sept / Oct and I learned a long time ago to wait and read the current book around the end of August so I caould delve right into the next one.. Now I'll have to wait until January!