Customer Reviews

Ramage and the Renegades

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For readers of the Ramage series this is a critical volume. Captain Lord Ramage finally realizes that marriage to his long-time love, the Marchesa of Volterra, is not going to happen.

A fragile peace has come to Europe. The Marchesa has decided to return to Italy despite the fact her enemy Napoleon still rules there. Ramage is off to the American Tropics again on a secret mission to survey a South Atlantic island. He finds a mix of surprising, deadly, and lovely discoveries. The novel is very slow starting. It focuses on people more than action. An unprecedented amount of informal conversation between crew and captain is a hallmark of this series, but this volume is more reliant than usual on dialogue and repartee. This story is best for how Ramage has to deal with civilians on his desert isle, and with the Marchesa, the IDEA of the Marchesa, and with a new woman in his life. This is almost a romance novel for men. For once his fierce reputation works against him, as he is manipulated by pirates.

As usual the writing is smooth, although a great stretch of the book lacks the tension of others due to it being peace time. Pope makes use of an expedition artist to describe the beauty of tropical skies and waters. You'll find interesting vignettes on shipyards, the Hydrographic Office ("Who knows, one day we might be able to print our own charts..."!), the despicable peace treaty of Amiens, shipboard chaplains, ship's books, and tropical clouds. An excellent map is included.

In 1801, after eight years of war against Britain, Napoleon Bonaparte negotiated a peace -- the Treaty of Amiens -- by which the naïve, incompetent new administration in London (under Addington, Pitt having resigned) gave up most of what the Royal Navy had gained and began cheerfully dismantling the navy itself. And Bonaparte thereby gained time to restock his warehouses and rebuild his own forces before returning to war. Every author of a Napoleonic Wars naval series has had to deal with this interval, to decide how his protagonist will respond. In the present case, will Capt. Lord Nicholas Ramage "go on the beach" when three-quarters of the wartime establishment is laid up in ordinary? He certainly doesn't need the income, but making war at sea is his business -- and, like most of his colleagues in the officer corps, he knows perfectly well that the peace is only a temporary catching of breath. Actually, he wants to keep his first-rate crew and collection of officers together for that eventuality, so he pulls a few strings and gets himself and his refitted frigate, CALYPSO, sent off to map and chart a small uninhabited island off the coast of Brazil and claim it for Great Britain. He takes along a party of surveyors and draftsmen and an artist, as well as a horticulturalist who will seed the island with self-sustaining crops for the benefit of future visitors. It's almost like a holiday, especially since they no longer have to go to quarters at the sight of every unknown sail. And when they arrive at Trinidade, they find an anchored British privateer and her five prizes -- including an East Indiaman as well as French and Dutch merchantmen. The privateersmen have reacted to the peace by turning pirate. All the merchant crews are interned under guard on the island while their paying passengers are being held as hostages on their ships -- knowing full well the privateersmen will kill them rather than bothering to arrange ransoms. How is Ramage going to deal with the privateers, liberate the captured crews, and prevent the murder of the hostages? Being Ramage, you know he's going to think of a way.

Meanwhile, Ramage's personal affairs are sorting themselves out as well. He's realist enough to understand that his previous ardor for the Gianna, the Italian marchesa he rescued from Bonaparte's pursuing cavalry in the first book in the series, has gradually cooled to simply a high regard. As the heir to an earldom (and, of course, a Protestant), he's never going to be able to marry her. She has the duty to return to her little kingdom, not stay in Cornwall -- and her subjects would never accept Ramage as her consort in any case. Anyway, Gianna has taken advantage of the peace to return to Italy on her own, even though Bonaparte is keeping the peninsula for himself, and even though his secret police are extremely unlikely to allow her to attempt to take up the reins of her government again. Other plot points aside, Pope is opening the way for Ramage to develop a relationship with some other woman that has more of a future in it -- and just such a well-born candidate turns up (surprise, surprise) among the passengers of the Indiaman. This, the twelfth episode, is one of the better in the series so far -- lots of well-described action, a few hair-raising moments, a leavening of sometimes grim humor, and lots of humanity among the characters we've come to know so well.

I have long been a fan of the Ramage series. However, I have grown a little dissappointed of the tedious re-introductions of the the main characters which occur in each book.

Nevertheless, this is one of the better ones. The concept of the story was good, almost believable, and Pope has done a good job in transporting you to the period.

There is little else I can say about the actual plot, without giving too much away. There is a good twist at the end - watch out for it! This is one of the series that you will probably be happy to buy, and re-read, not just borrow from the Library.

Another in the same style as all of the Ramage series.

Fun deversion. Little substance.

After having been on vacation for 2 books, Pope finally decided to sit down and write something interesting.

Ramage is sent to the South Atlantic to claim an island for Great Britain. As we comes into the harbor, he comes across several other craft, one of which turns out to be a privateer (well, the war is on hiatus, so they're really pirates). The others are 'prizes' with the passengers still aboard. This all makes for great suspense. Will Ramage get everyone free? Of course, and the fun is watching how. You'll have to read it to find out how.

There is also some good character development. The secondary story, one that has been going on since the first book, concerns Ramage's love interest, the beautiful Marchesa. This book defines and decides their relationship.

All in all, a good book and an easy read.

All Lord Ramage are vibrant and exciting novels based upon historical naval battles and themes during the 1800's. Very well written by Dudley Pope, a great series!