Treason's Harbour

Our heroes sail the Red Sea, visit Egypt, deal with Intrigue, c. 1812

***

Quite a wide-ranging tale we have ourselves, here. Many comic interludes, which I appreciate. This book had much in the way of land-based spy intrigue; the crew finds themselves in Malta's capital city, Valletta, as the HMS Surprise is repaired. While ashore, Maturin and Aubrey are enmeshed in the intelligence affairs of one French operative, named André Lesueur.

Lesueur has gained the cooperation of a local woman, one Mrs. Laura Fielding, whose husband, a Royal Navy officer, has been imprisoned by the French. In exchange for letters from him, Laura is forced to report on the goings on about Malta.

A traitor is also afoot, in the form of Andrew Wray, the Acting Second Secretary of the Admiralty, who has been dispatched to Malta nominally to investigate dockyard corruption. He is son-in-law to Admiral Harte, whom we've met and loathed before. Wray has a bad gambling problem (and might have a weakness for young boys, too), so he has turned to the French as a source of money.

Maturin purchases a crazy invention, a diving bell developed by none other than Sir Edmond Halley, late Astronomer Royal. The contraption is used to some degree of success in exploring the natural wonders (and nautical loot) potentially found on the ocean floor.

The adventure includes some land-based action traveling across the Saharan desert, riding camels. 

The book ends in a cliff-hanger, just after a vessel sailing with the HMS Surprise is caught in a fight and has its magazine explode, killing all aboard instantly. Admiral Harte was aboard. Maturin has not smoked out the traitorous Wray just yet, but no doubt he will catch the bad guy in the next installment.