The Captain and Commissioner
by Richard Woodman
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Double cross,love,bravery,intrigue and comeupance in the lighthouse service and Wales.
This book is actually two stories in one, The Captain of the Caryatid and The Cruise of the Commissioner, and is set around a lighthouse supply boat,the Caryatid, in the Welsh port of Porth Ardur. Things are running smoothly for the ship, her crew and captain Septimus Macready until a new harbour master is installed. The new harbour master,James Saint John Stanier, is young, ambitious, and wants change as he strives to make a name for himself in this small backwater. He viewss Macready as a major stumbling block in his way.
In many ways the book is a simple clash of personalities and doublecross, with a little love and infidelity thrown in for good show more measure but it the nautical background that gives it a slightly different perspective. The nautical knowledge appears generally very accurate although I did find myself having a small quibble with one minor part of it based on my own experiences.However, I found the main characters in particular somewhat stereotypical, with older and slightly overweight, bluff but upright Macready taking the more youthful, cocksure and sly upstart Stanier. That said the minor characters were far more intesting although I did feel that maybe the author struggles with female characterisation a little.
The first book I found rather slow and a bit like a school history lesson with an ending that was pretty predictable but then it was the first book of two so that is understandable. However, once the author had set the groundwork he built upon it nicely with the second story which had various twists and turns along the way. Again the ending was predictable, a little chintzy maybe, but how we got there was less so.
Personally I found the book interesting, I cannot recall ever reading another book based on this part of nautical history, and enjoyable, its worth persevering with the first story to reach the second,but overall lacked a little something to make it truly memorable. show less
This book is actually two stories in one, The Captain of the Caryatid and The Cruise of the Commissioner, and is set around a lighthouse supply boat,the Caryatid, in the Welsh port of Porth Ardur. Things are running smoothly for the ship, her crew and captain Septimus Macready until a new harbour master is installed. The new harbour master,James Saint John Stanier, is young, ambitious, and wants change as he strives to make a name for himself in this small backwater. He viewss Macready as a major stumbling block in his way.
In many ways the book is a simple clash of personalities and doublecross, with a little love and infidelity thrown in for good show more measure but it the nautical background that gives it a slightly different perspective. The nautical knowledge appears generally very accurate although I did find myself having a small quibble with one minor part of it based on my own experiences.However, I found the main characters in particular somewhat stereotypical, with older and slightly overweight, bluff but upright Macready taking the more youthful, cocksure and sly upstart Stanier. That said the minor characters were far more intesting although I did feel that maybe the author struggles with female characterisation a little.
The first book I found rather slow and a bit like a school history lesson with an ending that was pretty predictable but then it was the first book of two so that is understandable. However, once the author had set the groundwork he built upon it nicely with the second story which had various twists and turns along the way. Again the ending was predictable, a little chintzy maybe, but how we got there was less so.
Personally I found the book interesting, I cannot recall ever reading another book based on this part of nautical history, and enjoyable, its worth persevering with the first story to reach the second,but overall lacked a little something to make it truly memorable. show less
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Richard Woodman was born in London. England in 1944. He became an indentured midshipman in cargo liners at the age of 16, which resulted in a 37 year nautical career. He became captain in 1980. He spent 11 years in command at sea, 6 years in operational management ashore, and is currently a Board Member of Trinity House, the authority responsible show more for navigational safety round the coast. He is a regular correspondent for the shipping newspaper Lloyd's List. He has written over 50 books, a mixture of fiction and maritime history. His fiction works include the Nathaniel Drinkwater series, A Kit Faulkner Naval Adventure series, and The William Kite Trilogy. He received several awards including the Desmond Wettern Maritime Media Award in 2001 for his journalism, the Society of Nautical Research's Anderson Medal in 2005 for three major studies of convoy operations in the Second World War, and the Marine Society's Thomas Gray Medal in 2010 for his five-volume history of the British Merchant Navy. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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