Blue at the Mizzen

Rating:
Summary: And so we bid farewell to our dynamic duo . . . .
Review: Until the very last couple of pages in this twentieth and last volume of the Aubrey-Maturin saga, I was unsure of the implications of the book's title. But I was pleased to find that Jack's "flag-sickness" has been appeased. With the Napoleonic wars ended, the captain of the SURPRISE has had to go to revolutionary Chile to find ways of continuing to build his reputation, this time in the development of the infant republic's navy. There is a fine ship-to-ship action against a much larger Spanish vessel, and all the usual trials and tribulations of beating around the Horn. Moreover, the recently widowed Dr. Maturin has a much larger part this time even than usual, in his slightly odd pursuit of Christine Wood, widow of the governor of Sierra Leone and a noted naturalist in her own right. A mid-life crisis? We don't know how all that will turn out, unfortunately. It's sad that there will be no more installments to the story, but this is a reasonably satisfying conclusion.

Rating:
Summary: "Blue" that it's over-
Review: Who knew that early 19th century Naval history could be so exciting?

Girls, don't be afraid to read these books--I was a little intimidated, and boy, was I ever WRONG. Those who have compared O'Brien to Jane Austen are right on target. He could have written about sailors, soldiers or salesmen---as long as they were named Aubrey and Maturin, you can bet the stories would have been pure gold. But take a lesson from a previous reviewer--READ THEM IN ORDER!! And, if you have trouble with the nautical terms, like I did, get a copy of Dean King's "A Sea of Words", which does an excellent job of explaining them.

Never have I been as chagrined as when I reached the final page of "Blue at the Mizzen". It was as perfect an ending as could have been, and although the fates of Aubrey and Maturin are now left to the imagination, thanks to O'Brien, we have a rich treasury with which to create their final outcomes.