"The relationship [between Aubrey and Maturin]...is about the best thing afloat....For Conradian power of description and sheer excitement there is nothing in naval fiction to beat the stern chase as the outgunned Leopard staggers through mountain waves in icy latitudes to escape the Dutch seventy-four." —Stephen Vaughan, Observer

Commissioned to rescue Governor Bligh of Bounty fame, Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend

Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin are ordered home by dispatch vessel to bring the news of their latest victory to the government. But Maturin is a marked man for the havoc he has wrought in the French intelligence network in the New World, and the attention of two privateers soon becomes menacing. The chase that follows through the fogs and shallows of the Grand Banks is tense—and unexpected in its culmination.

Aubrey and Maturin must

"Every [Aubrey-Maturin] book is packed to absolute straining with erudition, wit, history, and thunderous action." —Joe Hill

"An overwhelming, outstanding novel...!"—Irish Times

The fifteenth installment in Patrick O'Brian's widely claimed series of Aubrey/Maturin novels is in equal parts mystery, adventure, and psychological drama.

The seventeenth novel in the sweeping Aubrey-Maturin series of naval tales, which the New York Times Book Review has described as "the best historical novels ever written."

Having survived a long and desperate adventure in the Great South Sea, Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin return to England to very different circumstances. For Jack it is a happy homecoming, at least initially, but for Stephen it is disastrous:

"One of the best novelists since Jane Austen...The Hundred Days may be the best installment yet." —Philadelphia Inquirer

Napoleon, escaped from Elba, pursues his enemies across Europe like a vengeful phoenix. If he can corner the British and Prussians before their Russian and Austrian allies arrive, his genius will lead the French armies to triumph at Waterloo. In the Balkans, preparing a thrust northwards into Central

To the delight of millions of Patrick O'Brian fans, here is the final, partial installment of the Aubrey-Maturin series, for the first time in paperback.

Blue at the Mizzen (novel #20) ended with Jack Aubrey getting the news, in Chile, of his elevation to flag rank: Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron, with orders to sail to the South Africa station. The next novel, unfinished and untitled at the time of the author's death,