Clarissa Oakes (US title

Captain Jack Aubrey sails away from the hated Australian prison colonies in his favourite vessel the Surprise, pondering on middle age and sexual frustration. He soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of his ship: to his astonishment he finds that in spite of a lifetimeвЂTMs experience he does not know what the foremost hands or even his own officers are thinking. They know, as he does not, that the Surprise has a stranger aboard: and what they, for their part, do not know is that the stranger is potentially as dangerous as a light in the powder magazine itself. In this book the characters of Clarrisa Oakes, Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin emerge more complex, sophisticated and wholly mature beings than ever before as they reflect on the past and try to divine the future - supported by the author's sense of human possibility As Captain Jack Aubrey sails away from the hated Australian prison colonies he soon becomes aware that he is out of touch with the mood of the ship. What he doesn't know is that there is a potentially dangerous stranger aboard ship