Rating: 
Summary: Another best
Review: Opening with a mutiny and then a horrific battle scene, this is the hardest, grimmest Dick Bolitho novel yet. As the preceding Sloop of War was a masterful study in types of command, this is raw battle, ferociously repeated. Glory is also a novel of loyalties, of officer to seaman, and especially the types of loyalty and disloyalty possible from the lower decks to the poop.The crew Bolitho inherits is already reluctant and mutinous, so his admiral adds all the rogues from the rest of the fleet on the West Indies Station! His lieutenants are contentious, and can be suspected of worse intent than the disgraced previous captain. And then while still trying to mold his crew into a fighting team Bolitho meets his brother, in command of a fierce American privateer, who becomes his nemesis before the climactic 1782 Battle of the Saintes with the entire French Caribbean fleet trying to steal a march on the British during their preoccupation with the American Revolution.Kent is great on fighting action, each novel having three or four battles at sea, and often one overland. Bolitho is "lucky" in this as well as his success, because I'm sure real captains, even Lord Cochrane, could hardly have had so many in a full career, With these two powerful novels, Sloop and Glory, Kent becomes a real contender in naval fiction. Interestingly, they are among the first written in the series. After tour de force novels like these, it's difficult to imagine how Kent will keep it up for the rest of the way in this very long series (now pushing $400 to buy, if you become hooked).
Rating:
Summary: Mutiny, betrayal and batlle in the West Indies in the 1780's
Review: Though Richard Bolitho is old enough and experienced enough to be taking on his first frigate command as this book opens, it is in fact the first of the Bolitho novels to have been published. A tyrannical previous captain has driven the crew to the edge of mutiny and as Bolitho sails for the West Indies for the closing stages of the American War of Independence his own crew is as much a threat to him as is the enemy. A skilfully handled American Privateer almost brings Bolitho's career to a premature end and the identity of its captain is such as to rub salt in the wound. Despite all, Bolitho battles back with courage, indomitability and humane leadership and forges his crew and ship into a single weapon that comes victoriously through the decisive Battle of the Saintes, the last of the war. One stalwart supporter of Bolitho makes his exit in glory while another, Allday, makes his first appearance in a most dramatic way. All the best features of the other novels in the series - convincing characterisation, absorbing technical detail, exciting action sequences and a strong plot line - are apparent in this earliest-published adventure.
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