Read by Robert Hardy

Captain Jack Aubrey sails away from the brutal Australian prison colonies, returned to his favourite ship the 'Surprise', but pondering on middle age and sexual frustration. Furthermore, he soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of his ship: to his astonishment he finds that in spite of a lifetime’s experience he does not know what the foremast hands or even his own officers are thinking. They know, as he does not, that the 'Surprise' has a stranger aboard, but what they do not know is that the stranger is potentially as dangerous as a lightin the powder magazine itself …

“He writes with humour, irony and an eye for those telling details that give you a man in a moment.”
Alan Judd, 'Sunday Times'

“ …Robert Hardy hass a consummate knack of giving timbre and atmosphere to everything he reads.”
TIME OUT

Reviews

‘What is so gripping about O’Brian’s novels is the completeness with which he invents a world which is our own and not our own… O’Brian is a brilliant observer.’
A.S. Byatt, Evening Standard