Patrick O'Brian - Treason's Harbour

Rating: 5/5

Review:
The ninth in a brilliant series

This is now my third time reading through this brilliant series and I am reminded again how beautifully written and how wonderfully, addictively enjoyable they are.

Treason’s Harbour is intimately concerned with intelligence affairs as it becomes clear that there is a traitor within the Service in the Mediterranean. Jack and Stephen are again dispatched to the Eastern Med, this time to deal with the situation in a small state on the Red Sea, with the usual intimate, sometimes very exciting account of naval life, Steven’s intelligence work and, of course, his explorations of natural history.

Patrick O'Brian is steeped in the period of the early 19th Century and his knowledge of the language, manners, politics, social mores and naval matters of the time is deep and wide. Combined with a magnificent gift for both prose and storytelling, it makes something very special indeed. The books are so perfectly paced, with some calmer, quieter but still engrossing passages and some quite thrilling action sequences. O'Brian's handling of language is masterly, with the dialogue being especially brilliant, but also things like the way his sentences become shorter and more staccato in the action passages, making them heart-poundingly exciting. There are also laugh-out-loud moments and an overall sense of sheer involvement and pleasure in reading.

I cannot recommend these books too highly. They are that rare thing; fine literature which are also books which I can't wait to read more of. Wonderful stuff.