He brings the scene vividly to life, clear voices for each different character (including the women), an ease with naval terminology and a story-telling ability that never oversteps the boundary into melodrama. I listened to the audiobook and I cannot praise Christian Rodska too highly as a narrator. I found it a pacy piece of escapism but just not up to the standards of Alexander Kent's Bolitho series. It has been quite a few years since I last read any of these books and this is a re-read however, I've always been a bit of a sucker for a maritime yarn.

Whilst Forester provides a pretty convincing portrayal of what is takes to sail a wooden warship in the heat of battle it still takes quite a leap in faith to believe that more senior officers would not only follow the suggestions made by a junior officer so closely but also give him credit for its subsequent sucess. In this second book Hornblower has progressed in rank with much of his character already formed by the time the novel opens, but here get to see how his natural talents which as a leader of men and a strategist begin to develop and be recognised. It starts in Plymouth Sound where an atmosphere of fear and suspicion exists between the captain and his officers, an apparent accident befalling the captain, a mission to the West Indies that ends in triumph before finishing off in the peacetime port of Portsmouth. The officer on watch as he does so is Hornblower, the ship's most junior (fifth) lieutenant.Īll the action that follows is told from Bush's point of view. This is the second book in the series and opens with Lieutenant Bush climbing aboard to join HMS Renown as the ship's third lieutenant.

Lieutenant Hornblower by C.S. Forester