Havoc's Sword

I jumped into the middle of a naval adventure series featuring Captain Alan Lewrie. Reminiscent of Patrick O’Brien’s seafaring adventures, you can leap right in without having read the earlier books. It is set during the interregnum, while the Terror in France is ongoing before the rise of Napoleon, when the Americans and the Brits were flirting at reconciliation following their recent disagreement. If you enjoy naval battles, swashbuckling duels, and political intrigue from morally ambiguous characters, this is your cup of tea or whisky as the case may be.

Havoc's sword - Alan Lewrie -1798- “It was a mortal pity. Here he was, a True Blue Heart of Oak, a bold sea officer of the Crown, and just because he’d kept a courtesan for a year of so, had an affair with a young widow who’d produced him a child from the wrong side of the blanket…Even the two medals tinkling together on his chest for St. Vincent and Camperdown meant nothing”… Well our hero forgot another child with “soft rabbit” who crosses his path… quite a busy guy a little ahead of his time… four children with three moms… and a ward… he would fit right in 2008… Well all of this does give him some interesting conundrums which give us as readers a chance to laugh…You also have a duel to the death which give show more you some insight to the times – the secret agents of the crown return and the guy that I wish Dewey would lose returns- “Guillaume Choundas” ...I guess all hero’s need a Professor Moriarety… the good old USA Navy returns too which also gives you some historical twists and our Hero some suprises... some of the trouble the Admirals and Staff Capt. cause him could also be taken out real life modern supervisors I’ve had… It tells you how Mr. Lambdin is able to build connections with those of us who enjoy his books…another good fun read. show less

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 show more 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"? show less