Well, the American Revolution is over the French Revolutionary Wars have not begun yet, so, what to do with our hero? Well, send him off to the East Indies to protect the interests of the Honourable Company. Bolitho is in command of a ship on a 'secret' mission. On the way to the Indies, he has to stop off in Africa for water, where he naturally has it out with some natives. After a short stop in India, it's off to the Indies, where he battles the French and pirates. It's all a lot of fun. Great adventure and action. One problem, though; as another reviewer wrote "I had trouble visualizing the ship maneuvres relative to land. Action proceeds and suddenly there's land or a channel where I didn't expect it, or on the opposite side from where I imagined it." I had exactly the same problem. It was really hard to imagine the lay-out of the land. I had this problem no matter where Bolitho was--Africa or the Indies. So, it made following the story a bit difficult.
One thing that I like about historical fiction is that it is a gateway to learning for me. For example, if Bolitho is assigned to the Indies, I pull out the map to track his routes; which countries control which islands? And so on. The topics are legion and a quick look in a dictionary or encyclopedia makes the story more enjoyable. The list of things I have learned by reading historical fiction is endless. This book opened up a new world for me, as I knew practically nothing about the East Indies at the end of the American Revolution.

I hate to write negative reviews but I simply had to.

Alexander Kent is a very, very poor writer. He simply doesn't know how to write. He's basically tried to copy C.S. Forester's Hornblower, in some cases almost verbatim, but he's just a terrible author and given a blueprint of how to write good historical novels can't even do a good copy of one.

His characters are unrealistic and act unnaturally. The dialogue is inane. The actions of the characters don't make sense and the whole book is just really drivel. I started reading Hornblower as a pre-teen and soon finished all his books, then I looked around and found Bolitho and thought I struck a gold mine. But his books were so poorly written that I gave up after a couple of them. Now decades later, I thought I'd give Bolitho another chance. I thought I'd just read the book for the action and skip the parts I didn't like but I just couldn't. I'm now at page 63 and I just can't finish this book.

Here's an example. Raymond's wife comes on board Bolitho's ship and starts ripping Raymond, I mean those are serious accusations she's making. Bolitho feels nothing and the only reaction we see is that he decides to substitute the quakers for 12 pdrs to get more room. Both Raymond and Bolitho should have at least felt embarrassed, Raymond embarrassed that his wife would have said something like that in front of total strangers and Bolitho embarrassed because he was a stranger hearing these things. Instead we get no reaction from any of the characters. C.S. Forester on the other hand would have given us Hornblower's deep feelings.

More rubbish: A cutter comes towards the ship. The first lieutenant remarks to the weeks old midshipman "That will be more hands, I hope." Why would a 1st lieutenant ever say something so stupid to a weeks on board midshipman? Would the midshipman even understand all the nuances of such a statement? And in those days, would a 1st lieutenant even condescend to say something so subversive of discipline to a new midshipman? It's just rubbish writing. And none of the lieutenants on the ship are realistically written. I feel like the whole book was written by a 10 year old boy.

And that is the difference between a good writer and a bad one. A good writer gives us insight into the character, let's us live his life or see through his eyes through good writing. That's why people love Hornblower. Forester made him a very real character, a belieable one.

A bad writer doesn't. But Alexander Kent is even worse than that because like I said, his characters act unnaturally and speak all kinds of drivel. I'm sorry, but a few decades later, I have to commend my own good judgement as a teenager not to read this drivel.

My verdict: Alexander Kent is to be avoided at all costs.