Jack Aubrey’s long service is at last rewarded: he is promoted to the rank of Commodore, and given a squadron of ships to command. His mission is twofold - to make a large dent in the slave trade off the coast of Africa and, on his return, to intercept a French fleet set for Bantry Bay with a cargo of weapons for the disaffected among the Irish. But might the nature of the secret mission on which the squadron is sent present a conflict of loyalties for the complicated and inscrutable figure of Stephen Maturin, Jack’s indispensable ship’s surgeon and close friend? Invention and surprise follow at every turn in this tale of nineteenth-century seamanship, as rich, as compelling, as masterly as any of its predecessors.