Read by Robert Hardy.

'The Nutmeg of Consolation' opens with Jack Aubrey and his friend the intelligence agent Stephen Maturin stranded, following a shipwreck, on an uninhabited island in the Dutch East Indies, under siege by ferocious Malay pirates. They contrive their escape, but after a change of ship, find themselves caught up in a night chase in fiercly tidal waters and then embroiled in the much more insidious conflicts of the terrifying penal settlements of New South Wales.

“The author’s voice is a wise one, humane, sceptical, kindly, just . . .'The Nutmeg of Consolation' brings his achievement to a new height. Any contemporary novelist should recognise in Patrick O’Brian a Master of the Art.”
ALAN JUDD, 'Sunday Telegraph'

“Robert Hardy’s reading gives a real feel of salt spray, not to mention a taste of the lash.”
THE TIMES

Reviews

‘The best historical novels ever written.’
New York Times

‘The Nutmeg of Consolation brings his achievement to a new height. Any contemporary novelist should recognize in Patrick O’Brian a Master of the Art.’
Alan Judd, Sunday Telegraph