Good addition to the series with expedition against slavery in Africa and blocking French landing at Ireland. Both the captain and doctor have problems with their wives. Seemed a little rushed at the end, but still worthwhile. I like the doctor's feyish daughter. ( )

A re-read as I'd managed to read both this and The Hundred Days a long way out of sequence.

Not the best Aubrey/Maturin. Perfectly decent, but not the usual driving plot, which is possibly why I didn't remember any of it!

Would have given it a 3.75 if I could have. ( )

Having circum-navigated the globe, Aubrey and Maturin have an interlude back in England before setting off to fight the slave-trade off the coast of Africa. These interludes are the weakest parts of this saga, for me; I just get a bit bored quite quickly. But soon enough we're back at sea with Aubrey in command of a small fleet for the second time and then matters fairly whizz along, like a ship clapping on sail, right up to the sky-scrapers. The problems of fleet command present new challenges for Aubrey and Maturin faces new and old family challenges.

A pleasant, competent entry into this series, neither the worst nor the best - and only three more to go! ( )

The Commodore, Patrick O’Brian’s seventeenth book in his Aubrey-Maturin series, picks up shortly after the events of The Wine-Dark Sea, with Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin aboard the Surprise finally returning home to England. Though they had been looking forward to home, they find things changed in their absence. Stephen’s wife, Diana, has given birth to their daughter Brigid, but the girl appears to have developmental disabilities. This triggers a depressive episode in Diana, who goes to visit family, leaving the child in the care of Clarissa Oakes. Jack, for his part, becomes jealous of the time his wife Sophie spends visiting the local priest, Mr. Hinksey, while Sophie becomes jealous of Clarissa Oakes after seeing that he gave both women a similar bolt of silk. Before things can get much worse, he must depart to head a squadron going to the African coast in order to disrupt the slave trade. Along the way, Stephen hides Clarissa Oakes and his assistant Padeen in Spain, along with his daughter, since the pardons he had expected for both are being delayed by a royal with connections to France.

The majority of the novel focuses on events off the African coast, where Jack and Stephen, both morally opposed to slavery, encounter the conditions on slave ships for the first time. Their orders were to disrupt the trade as loudly as possible, both to make an example, and in order that their secret plans to attack a French and American convoy heading to Ireland to arm the locals against the English will go unnoticed by French intelligence. O’Brian contrasts this with the other time Aubrey was part of a squadron, in The Ionian Mission. Like that work, having a number of ships at sea together makes it possible to tell a character-driven story against a backdrop similar to a small town, with various temperaments and conflicts. Unlike The Ionian Mission, in which the squadron was on blockade duty, here they have missions taking them around the coast of West Africa and back to Ireland, so there is more action for the characters and for the reader.

Like the previous ten novels, The Commodore exists outside the normal flow of time – this novel being the eleventh and final book to exist in what O’Brian described as an extended 1812, with these books taking place between the beginning of June 1813 and November 1813. Further, this concludes the circumnavigation of the globe that began in The Thirteen Gun Salute. Those looking for a perfect chronology are advised to simply enjoy the story and the way in which O’Brian perfectly recreates the world of the Napoleonic Wars, using Aubrey and Stephen’s activities to comment on the rapid changes occurring in this era and the passage of time in the series’ internal chronology. This Folio Society edition reprints the original text with insets containing historical portraits and sketches to illustrate some of the scenes. ( )

One of my favorite installments so far in this series. Such a pleasure to read. ( )