Patrick O'Brian

The first volume of the Aubrey/Maturin novels introduces Captain Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, ship's surgeon and intelligence agent, in the age of the Napoleonic wars.

Third in the series of Aubrey–Maturin adventures, this book is set among the strange sights and smells of the Indian subcontinent and in the distant waters ploughed by the ships of the East India Company. Aubrey is on the defensive, pitting wits and seamanship against an enemy enjoying overwhelming local superiority. But somewhere in the Indian Ocean lies the prize that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams: the ships sent by Napoleon

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Stephen Maturin brings Captain Jack Aubrey secret orders to lead an expedition against the French islands of Mauritius and La Reunion, but the conduct of two of his own officers threatens the success of the mission.

When last seen, Jack and Stephen had been shipwrecked on a desert island in the glittering South China Sea. The Nutmeg of Consolation opens as the castaways fashion a makeshift vessel from the wreckage, only to have it destroyed in a fiery attack by Malay pirates. Only the wondrous ingenuity of Stephen, along with the unexpected appearance of one of Jack's oldest allies, leads them to escape-and to dubious safety in a penal colony at New South Wales....