I am a huge fan of historic nautical fiction particularly covering the period of the American and the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars. I have read and reread C.S. Forester, Patrick O’Brian, Alexander Kent and Dudley Pope. With Kydd (****) Julian Stockwin introduced a new take on the subject. It started detailing the live and times of a whig-maker pressed into the Royal Navy. Artemis (***’) the second book although the plot literally went all over (China, the South Sea, Cape Horn) captivated me to the end although it had a lot of loose ends. What happened with the English envoy they transported to China and what about the astronomers who were the reason for Artemis to venture in the South Seas? In Seaflower (***’) Kydd and Renzi - having lost their petty officer rating - are now in the Caribbean. After many an adventure, at the end Kydd is appointed a masters mate. In Mutiny for 40% of the book we follow Kydd from England to Gibraltar and to Venice and back (why did they have to pick up an English envoy in Venice and what happened with him afterwards?) then for half the book Kydd - a master’s mate - in a few pages is joining the mutineers and acting as the secretary of Richard Parker the President of the mutineers at the Nore. Interesting for maybe 20 pages but not for 200. Just prior to being condemned from mutiny Renzi is able to have him exonerated and pardoned. And then in the remaining 10% of the book we are at the Battle of Camperdown at the end of which Kydd is appointed … I’ll give it one star. I hope the next book is better. ( )

It is 1797 and Thomas Kydd is now master's mate on Achilles, a 64-gun ship-of-the-line, on his way back from the Caribbean. After a dangerous rescue mission to Venice Kydd sails for England, but his joy at returning home after many years' absence is soon forgotten when he finds himself at the centre of one of the most extraordinary events in English history - the Mutiny at the Nore.
Ten thousand men, one thousand guns and scores of ships hold the country to ransom: the government is near collapse; the economy on the brink of ruin.
And Kydd is faced with a terrible choice. Abandon his friends and shipmates? Or join the rebellion and put his career - and even his life - on the line?