Havoc's Sword
An Alan Lewrie Naval Adventure
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4.4 • 48 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Dewey Lambdin's lovable but incorrigible rogue, Captain Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, is back to cut a wide and wicked swatch through the war-torn Caribbean in an entirely new high seas adventure.
It's 1798, and Lewrie and his crew of the Proteus frigate have their work cut out for them. First, he has rashly vowed to uphold a friend's honour in a duel to the death. Second, he faces the horridly unwelcome arrival of HM Government's Foreign Office agents (out to use him as their cat's-paw in impossibly vaunting schemes against the French). And last, he must engineer the showdown with his arch foe and nemesis, the hideous ogre of the French Revolution's Terror, that clever fiend Guillaume Choundas!
We know Lewrie can fight, but can he be a diplomat, too? He must deal with the newly reborn United States Navy, that uneasy, unofficial "ally", and the stunning, life-altering surprise they bring. For good or ill, Lewrie's in the "quag" up to his neck, this time. Can sword, pistol, and broadsides avail, or will words, low cunning, and Lewrie's irrepressible wit be the key to his victory and survival, as even the seas cry "Havoc"?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A starred or boxed review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred or boxed review.HAVOC'S SWORDDewey Lambdin. St. Martin's/Dunne, (384p) In this solid seafaring historical, the 11th in Lambdin's Alan Lewrie series, British Royal Navy Captain Lewrie is tasked with hounding his longtime nemesis, the brutal and cunning French commander Guillaume Choudas. Choudas has been sent to sow discord on the French Caribbean island of Hispaniola, where Toussaint L'Ouverture holds the reins of power after a slave rebellion in 1791. The British have a cockeyed scheme to back L'Ouverture's rival-in-arms, General Rigaud, against the rebellion's leader. Though opposed to the plan, Lewrie is under orders to support it. After harassing the French on his own, and killing one of Choudas's best captains, Lewrie covertly teams up with the newly minted American navy and lures the French Caribbean fleet into a trap. The American navy proves its mettle, badly mauling the French, and, after Lewrie has tricked Choudas once again with false information, the Americans capture the Frenchman. Lewrie and his Foreign Office spy compatriot, the highly competent Peel, go over the head of insipid regional spymaster Grenville Pelham to suggest further alliance with the Americans as a means toward British dominance of the Caribbean and Atlantic. Lambdin's villains are invariably either monsters or weasels, and Lewrie is never believably threatened by them, so there isn't much tension. But Lambdin's customary good humor, well-wrought naval battles and use of every ruse de guerre in the book provide enough moment-to-moment pleasure to keep this long-running adventure series afloat.
