Desolation Island

**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 and surgeon Stephen Maturin sail the *Leopard* to Australia with a hold full of convicts. Among them is a beautiful and dangerous spy—and a treacherous disease that decimates the crew. With a Dutch man-of-war to windward, the undermanned, outgunned *Leopard* sails for her life into the freezing waters of the Antarctic, where, in mountain seas, the Dutchman closes.