Jester's Fortune (Alan Lewrie Naval Series #8)

by Dewey Lambdin

Overview

1796. A diminutive, Corsican-born French general has inherited a ragtag army and turned it into an unstoppable fighting force. Within months, Napoleon's storm rolls across Italy and strikes a lethal blow against the Austrian empire. But while the soil of Piedmont and Tuscany runs with blood, another battle takes shape on the mysterious Adriatic Sea. Alan Lewrie and his 18-gun sloop, HMS Jester are part of a squadron of four British warships and sail into the thick of things. But with England's allies falling, Napoleon busy rearranging the world map, and their squadron stretched dangerously thin along the Croatian coast, the British squadron commander strikes a devil's bargain: enlisting the aid of Serbian pirates.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590130346
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	10/01/2002
Series:	Alan Lewrie Naval Series , #8
Pages:	446
Sales rank:	586,256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

Dewey Lambdin has been a sailor since 1976 and has also worked as a director, writer, and producer in television and advertising. He is a member of the U.S. Naval Institute, the Cousteau Society, and the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and is a Friend of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England. Besides the Alan Lewrie series, he is also the author of What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

Editorial Reviews

You could get addicted to this series. Easily.

New York Times Book Review

If Horatio Hornblower is the gentleman’s sailor and Jack Aubrey is the thinking man’s sailor, Lewrie is of and for the working class. Pugnacious and randy, he’s a refreshing sea breeze.

San Jose Mercury News

Stunning naval adventure, reeking of powder and mayhem. I wish I had written this series.

Bernard Cornwell

"You could get addicted to this series. Easily."  —The New York Times



"Stunning naval adventure, reeking of powder and mayhem. I wish I had written this series."  —Bernard Cornwell

From the Publisher

The eighth title in the Alan Lewrie adventure series (after The King's Coat) finds our hero in 1796 the commander of the sloop HMS Jester, one of four Royal Navy ships patrolling the Adriatic. Napoleon has been marauding in Northern Italy and the squadron's duty is to maintain the Alliance's shaky ties with Venice. Feeling shorthanded, the flotilla's leader decides to enlist, sub rosa, some Balkan pirates on the English side. Lewrie is justifiably hesitant about this ploy and, as events ensue, he's proven right when the Serbian pirates engage in an orgy of gut-churning brutality. The face of ethnic cleansing has rarely looked so ghastly. Lambdin offers views of new places here (Corfu, the "fabulist sham" of Venice); exotic history (someone calls the feral feuds of the Serbs, Croats, Greeks, Turks, Albanians, Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims "rather complicated"--British understatement raised to a new level); and inner workings of a craft (sailors' life, aboard and ashore). There are successful sea actions (and prize money), a bloody denouement with the Serbian pirates and, for the "bit unconventional" Lewrie, who is somewhat of a scamp, a new romantic entanglement. Readers of the series will not be disappointed in the ending, although Lambdin should lose his annoying tendency to mimic phonetic speech, which seriously slows the plot (e.g., an Austrian officer/translator remarks, "He asks me, are we de British Royal Navy vich hezz so vahry much silver to buy brat unt sheep"). But fans will find plenty to like in this colorful adventure. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Prepare to come about! Alan Lewrie, captain H.M.S. Jester, is bound for the Adriatic in Lambdin's (A King's Commander, 1996; etc.) eighth installment of his hero's adventures at sea. This time, we find Lewrie still hot on Bonaparte's trail as the little Corsican embarks on his Italian campaign. Despite his defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar, Napoleon still, in 1805, controls nearly the whole of Europe and is resolved to destroy the British through economic warfare. With the greatest army since the Caesars' at his command, the Emperor is invincible on the Continent-but the British rule the waves. That's where Lewrie comes in. The Alps make overland supply routes impossible, so the Jester and three ships under her command are sent to blockade the Italian coast. Lewrie quickly realizes that the job is beyond them on their own. But where can they turn for help, in enemy waters thousands of miles from home? Well, who do sailors always turn to when the odds are against them? No, not God (this is the 19th century, after all) but pirates-in this case, a flotilla of Serbian outlaws. All the Lambdin hallmarks-adventure, politics, betrayal, and courage-are here, and it doesn't give the game away to say that Lewrie manages to carry the day as usual, but not without leaving enough fight in the French to generate another book or two. .

Kirkus Reviews