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Rating: 
Summary: Reminiscent of Dirk Pitt's best
Review: The fourth Ramage carries on with the tradition of highly entertaining naval action . The dialogue, descriptions of scenes and actions, and character behavior are first rate. The hurricane scene is what reminds me of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt. I've not read a better account of existence in the middle of a hurricane, rivals the best Pitt action scenes.
Rating:
Summary: Reminiscent of Dirk Pitt's best
Review: The fourth Ramage carries on with the tradition of highly entertaining naval action . The dialogue, descriptions of scenes and actions, and character behavior are first rate. The hurricane scene is what reminds me of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt. I've not read a better account of existence in the middle of a hurricane, rivals the best Pitt action scenes.
Rating:
Summary: Fast-paced seafaring
Review: This 4th volume picks up the events in the eastern Caribbean following Lt. Ramages's FREEBOOTER adventure. You really should read this series in order, if only because at first opportunity some character will recapitulate the previous volume's heroics. In this fast-paced story Ramage endures 1797 convoy duty, suffers from his family's nemesis again (RAMAGE #1), sees a new heartthrob, spots a skulking privateer, is terrorized by a hurricane, hunts treasure, obtains a prize of no interest, is subject to another court martial, and pursues an ugly vendetta. This time out Pope teaches us about convoying, the muster book, hurricane colors and frights, estimating distances at sea, ship weights, and the then value of gold. Pope writes pretty well, with great pace, plot, and crystal clear action. The structure of the stories is dramatic, moving from small to large troubles with pauses for strained humor. Scenes are dead on, but the overall plot is so improbable you don't want to think on it. His characters are interesting but so predictably one-sided you soon learn to recognize the clues who will turn out good or bad. An authorial tic is interrupting long climactic action sequences with dry disquisitions on naval minutiae that could easily have been put in the slow parts instead. Or perhaps Pope is trying to show the thought processes of a somewhat naive leader who is at his best only in angry action (vide his model, Hornblower). Pope doesn't give away upcoming events in his chapter headings (none), unlike Kent's stories of Bolitho. The language is unoffensive; the blood and guts of battle is simply not strongly felt, and we never learn whether Ramages's new infatuations actually betray his first love. The characters' emotions are restrained, like a contemporary painting by Ingres or David rather than the horror of Goya or Blake. The book design by Paperwork is a fine job. (368 pp only.) Hardback copies of Ramage are way up in value.
Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining, except for cheesy romance
Review: This book is very similar to the first three books in this series: some good action, so-so dialogue and characterization, and a couple of brief (fortunately) romantic scenes that are so bad that it is hard to believe that Pope's editor and friends did not give him the advice to either change these scenes dramatically or ditch them altogether. Maybe they did and he just didn't listen. Anyway, there is some good action in this book, although there is less battle action than in the previous books. There is a truly great scene where Ramage and his crew are fighting to keep their ship afloat during a hurricane. The hurricane scene is one that has been done many times in this genre, but Pope does it very well in this book. Pope spent a lot of time sailing around the Caribbean and he obviously accumulated a lot of knowledge of the area; he does a great job describing the islands. Ramage makes some clever legal and political moves to try and defend himself from the attacks of his enemy, the evil Admiral Goddard. At times this book almost reminded me of an episode of JAG (which isn't really a bad thing). In summary, this is a pretty entertaining read, but I hope that in future installments Pope stops having Ramage fall in love with a new girl in every book only to completely forget about her and fall in love with a new girl in the next book. (I know Ramage is supposed to have a bad memory but give us a break!)
Rating: 
Summary: Ramage Amazes Me!
Review: This is the best of Dudley Pope's Lord Ramage novels, I have read to date. The story is best summed up by one of the character's ..."it is a tale of almost everything the sea has to offer ---a battle, a huricane, a shipwreck on a reef, hunting for treasure, a dangerous voyage in a tiny ship, and a naval court martial." However, what amazes about Pope's Ramage is that after two court martials for cowardice, the lost of three of His Majesty's ships Sibella, Kathleen, and Triton all taking place during Pope's first 4 novels, Lt. Ramage still commands a king's ship by the end and has talked the Commander-in-Chief of the Carribean into allowing him to retain his crew of 60 able seaman, instead of transferring them to much needed berths on other ships. It's incredible the Admiralty hasn't beached him yet.
Rating:
Summary: Ramage Amazes Me!
Review: This is the best of Dudley Pope's Lord Ramage novels, I have read to date. The story is best summed up by one of the character's ..."it is a tale of almost everything the sea has to offer ---a battle, a huricane, a shipwreck on a reef, hunting for treasure, a dangerous voyage in a tiny ship, and a naval court martial." However, what amazes about Pope's Ramage is that after two court martials for cowardice, the lost of three of His Majesty's ships Sibella, Kathleen, and Triton all taking place during Pope's first 4 novels, Lt. Ramage still commands a king's ship by the end and has talked the Commander-in-Chief of the Carribean into allowing him to retain his crew of 60 able seaman, instead of transferring them to much needed berths on other ships. It's incredible the Admiralty hasn't beached him yet.
Rating:
Summary: Adventure in the Caribbean
Review: Well, annoyances exist in the Ramage series, the same annoyances cropping up with monotonous regularity in all the books I've read so far. But for all that, they're decent adventure stories to while away a quiet weekend with. They're less heavy on the naval detail than Patrick O'Brian's books, the language is accessible, the plots flow along and the characters are mostly sympathetic (except for the boo-hiss obvious villains). The hero might be a stereotype, but he's a fun one who's well-drawn. "Governor Ramage RN" sees Lieutenant Lord Nicholas Ramage in command of the brig Triton. He joins an escort convoy for merchant shipping in the Caribbean commanded by his family's enemy, Admiral Goddard. Strange events ensue as one of the convoy vessels is attacked by French privateers in search of its "cargo", and then a hurricane strikes . . . Can Ramage survive the hurricane and save his ship? Can he hold his crew and passengers together against the twin threats of the Spanish and buried treasure? Can he save his neck from the noose as Admiral Goddard moves to destroy him? Read this improbable but exciting tale to find out.
Those annoyances I mentioned . . . Pope has an unfortunate tendency to dump in the detail that shows he's done his historical homework, often at inappropriate moments. There will always be the occasional point-of-view from another character, but only for the purposes of physically describing and then praising and/or worshipping Ramage. And the "romance" angle - these books are so obviously written by a man - that has Ramage "fall in love" with the nearest available young woman despite the existence of his almost-fiancee, complete with painful dialogue and cringe-worthy physical details, yet remains coy about exactly what Ramage gets up to out of Gianna's sight. But as annoying as these things can be, I still do urge you to try these books - they might not bother you at all!
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