The Privateer’s Revenge
Naval adventure series seem to have a periodic need to depart from rousing tales of oceangoing drama in favor of planting their characters on land. This ninth volume of Thomas Kydd’s career in fictional stories of the Age of Sail finds him and his true friend Renzi engaged in both privateering (legalized piracy) and intelligence service respectively along the English Channel during the Napoleonic Wars.
Julian Stockwin enlisted me as a shipmate with his first Kydd adventure. I have always enjoyed his style and imaginative writing but must admit that Lieutenant Kydd’s inability to cope with the depression of his fiancée’s death seemed to go on far too long in this novel. I found myself hoping to read of Nicholas Renzi’s role working with French Royalists attempting to depose Napoleon rather than sail with the depressed, and thoroughly depressing, Kydd. The writing returned to full speed ahead as Kydd emerged from his grief and solved the complexities of coastal warfare while bringing victory once again to the Royal Navy.
