The Lewrie series continues and yet here, once more, in a year when we could have had one more close encounter at Trafalgar for a naval hero, we miss that battle. We hear about it, as one might have during the times, but we are nor there. Instead we are aiding to transport cavalry to the invasion of the Cape of Good Hope.

Something that Julian Stockwin showed us with Kydd around the time that this book was published. I am not sure who came first.

Lambdin does show us the first encounter against the Dutch and that was well done. He then takes us to Buenos Aires, as Stockwin did as well. But then Popham did order his squadron to attack and take that Spanish Possession. We don't get all the shore experience there as Stockwin gave us. We do get finally, a sea battle for about 30 pages, less than a tenth of the book. So that is why we are let down. A series that thrived on combat turns ever more to very little action at sea. And we (SPOILER) see far too much sentimentality attached to an event in the book for several pages that aids in rounding out the humanity of our hero, but should have been handled shorter. We did not pay to see that our brave captain needed ten pages to be brought to tears. ( )

Having already been present and sometimes a participant in most of this era's sea battles. Lewrie fills in his slack time by jaunting off to Capetown. He participates in the invasion and capture of Cape Town ( )

Slow, and pretty minor, but I'm probably reading too many of these in a row to catch up for the spring book release. ( )