Reverse Of The Medal #11 [Paperback]

Ashore between cruises, Captain Jack Aubrey is persuaded to sink some money into an investment scheme. Soon this innocent decision enmeshes him in various criminal and even treasonous enterprises, which threaten to destroy his entire career. Bad luck? A deliberate plot? Read this latest installment of the Aubrey-Maturin saga to find out. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

'!full of the energy that comes from a writer having struck a vein! Patrick O'Brian is unquestionably the Homer of the Napoleonic wars.' James Hamilton- Paterson 'You are in for the treat of your lives. Thank God for Patrick O'Brian: his genius illuminates the literature of the English language, and lightens the lives of those who read him.' Kevin Myers, Irish Times 'In a highly competitive field it goes straight to the top. A real first-rater.' Mary Renault 'I never enjoyed a novel about the sea more. It is not only that the author describes the handling of a ship of 1800 with an accuracy that is as comprehensible as it is detailed, a remarkable feat in itself. Mr O'Brian's three chief characters are drawn with no less depth of sympathy than the vessels he describes, a rare achievement save in the greatest writers of this genre. It deserves the widest readership.' Irish Times

The Reverse of the Medal is in all respects an unconventional tale. Jack Aubrey returns from his duties protecting whalers off South America and is persuaded by a casual acquaintance to make investments in the City on the strength of supposedly certain information.

From there he is led into the half-worlds of the London criminal underground and of government espionage — the province of his friend Stephen Maturin, on whom alone he can rely.

Those who are already devoted readers of Patrick O'Brian will find here all the brilliance of characterisation and sparkle of dialogue which they have come to expect. For those who will read him for the first time there will be the pleasure of discovering, quite unexpectedly, a novelist of unique character.

Patrick O`Brian, one of our greatest contemporary novelists, is the author of the acclaimed Aubrey-Maturin tales and the biographer of Joseph Banks and Picasso. His first novel, Testimonies, and his Collected Short Stories have recently been republished by HarperCollins. He has translated many works from French into English, among them the novels and memoirs of Simone de Beauvoir and the first volume of Jean Lacouture`s biography of Charles de Gaulle. In 1995 he was the first recipient of the Heywood Hill Prize for a lifetime`s contribution to literature. In the same year he was also awarded the CBE. In 1997 he was given an honorary doctorate of letters by Trinity College, Dublin. Patrick O`Brian died in January 2000.