Customer Reviews

Relentless Pursuit: The Richard Bolitho Novels (Volume 25)

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4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Alexander Kent is now depicting the Royal Navy without a defined enemy and the impact this is having on it. Without a belligerent France across the Channel, the strength of the navy is slashed to the bone and beyond.

Adam Bolitho is still in command of the frigate Unrivalled only now is dealing with ships packed to overflowing with Africans en-route to slavery and with North African pirates. Neither of these opponents are giving much concern to politicians and merchant bankers of Great Britain, except in so far as they are accumulating wealth from the transport and auction of slaves. The man in the street knows little about this and cares less.

It is this apathy of the public that the Royal Navy in general and Adam in particular must battle. It might be easy to die for your country when the enemy is French or Spanish, but when it is a slave runner, the concept becomes a little vague. Fighting in the Bay of Biscay is one thing, fighting in the Bight of Benin is something else entirely.

Kent creates the atmosphere of these times with great care. You are faced with seamen, tossed onto the beach without thought, after being through tremendous hardship and danger. You are also faced with the families that they had left behind and now must support in some form or fashion. Also, there is the aristocracy, both of society and the Royal Navy that must be maintained. These features never go away. One would think that the needs of the Naval aristocracy would decrease as the Navy shrinks - far from it!

Adam Bolitho is a complex man and as I learn more about him, I can see this. From a bastard orphan to a successful naval officer, we have seem him evolve. Yet he is still dogged by his origins - he has never forgotten the days as a youngster fending for himself as his mother became unable to care and support him.

This is a book without the flash and thunder of a fleet action. Now it is a series of actions between schooners and sloops and oared launches. Adam's ship is too big and powerful to be of decisive value except as a resevoir from which to draw men to man the smaller ships. It is this type of action that is honing the skills of the men of Unrivalled and preparing them for the ultimate combat with African pirates.

Throughout the book, we are reintroduced to charecters of the past, Thomas Herrick, Daniel Yovel, Graeme Bethune and others. We see an appearance by Richard's daughter Elizabeth as she starts to connect to Adam for after all, in spite of birth situation, he is her closest surviving relative and vice versa.

This book is a continuation of the Bolitho family saga. It continues to add to what we know of the family, even if it is only in small details, such as the name of Adam's mother. I found it thoroughly enjoyable and a fine addition to my library. I would recommend it to anyone who has read even a few of the preceeding books on the Bolitho family.

This novel is tagged as a Richard Bolitho novel. It's not. Mr. Kent chose to kill Richard Bolitho off two novels ago and left us with his whining nephew, Adam, who annoyed me from the very beginning. I'd been reading of Richard's many and varied adventures for 25 years and Mr. Kent kills him off in one paragraph!? How did faithful, loyal Allday feel? Who knows? Mr. Kent chose to totally disregard his friendship with Richard. I was so disgusted I donated the book to my local library. Adam is a whiner. The women in Kent's latest novels have the men wrapped around their little fingers. Geez! Where's the fabulous comraderie of the earlier novels, the triumphant battles and the agony of defeat? Also, he killed off most of the wonderful characters I so enjoyed (thank goodness dear Allday was spared, the *only* character left I can empathize with). So no. I will not read another Adam novel.

Since Peace has broken out following the final defeat of Napoleon, the British Navy is on short rations. Nevertheless, Capt. Adam Bolitho is somehow kept on to continue his seaborne adventures begun in the previous volume, #24 Second to None. Before confronting the Dey again, he is assigned to the anti-slave patrols off Africa, and also encounters serious trouble while sailing as a courier for the Admiralty.

This is the second novel in this Napleonic Wars series to focus exclusively on Adam Bolitho, Adm. Richard's nephew. Adam is not a genius of tactics or leadership like his mentor. Actually, although Richard is gone, Adam and the other characters spend quite a bit fondly moping about him while they go sailing back and forth. Author Kent waxes nostalgic and layers this novel with extended sentimentality about Richard, We Happy Few, Catherine, Herrick, etc. etc. Naval action is relatively perfunctory relative either to the early books or the sentimental involvements here of Adam with his crew of faithfuls, and with another beautiful but troubled damsel. In other words, this book is strictly for people who've read all the others and are willing to reminisce about their leading characters, many of whom make cameo appearances here.

This is the 25th novel in Kent's Bolitho series. I've read them all up to this one, but this will be the last one. The stories have gotten progressively more wrapped up in angst and moral breast-beating, to the expense of the action that characterized the earlier books. This book might have about 25 pages of actual action at sea, along with 340 pages of emotional entanglements, social injustices, and general moaning. I hope later books improve, but somebody will have to tell me about them, because I don't intend to waste any more of my time.

It says by Alexander Kent, but then inside, it says, 'Copyright Bolitho Maritime Productions.' Does this mean that Alexander Kent did not actually write this novel?
Whether he did or not, 'Relentless Pursuit' will not be joining my collection of Bolitho novels. The writing was particularly poor - my biggest criticism being that the point of view jumped around so quickly between scarcely known characters that I became fed up and abandoned the novel half way through.

See the 3-word description above and save yourself the time of reading this. The only thing relentless about this novel was its relentless lack of focus. Kent is capable of much better.

Douglas Reeman under the pen name Alexander Kent has been writing Bolitho novels since the 1970s. I remember reading Sloop of War and liking the speed of the sloop plus its 16 18 pounders and two forward 24 pounders making it an 18 gun ship. There is a Science fiction story where a human encounters a Computer civilization and the Computer demands millions of books to read and then the Human promises to fill the order and runs away. I have been trying to fill that order ever since by encouraging good writers like Alexander Kent. Adam Bolitho used to be called Adam Pascoe in the series at one time and was the Favorite relative of Richard Bolitho, described as being like a son to Richard. It is difficult to believe that the Admiral Richard Bolitho was written out of the series. Tackling the African slave trade difficulties as Captain of a Frigate makes the Captain Adam Bolitho character worth checking out in this Suspenseful novel

If you enjoyed the other novels in the series you will enjoy this one. The story continues.

Too many story lines and the ships jumping from the Med to Engalnd to Africa to the Med with people jumping in and out and and a new woman thrown in. Can't anyone in this series fall in love over a period greater than one day? THe action is limited and the book doesn't stand alone. Unless you have rtead the first 24, don't start here