Tenacious

I just finished reading Tenacious, the sixth novel in Julian Stockwin’s Kydd series. In this book, Kydd finds himself a junior Lieutenant aboard the ship Tenacious as it campaigns in the Mediterranean to combat Napoleon Buonaparte’s attempts to rampage his army through Egypt to Turkey. Kydd comes into contact with Admiral Nelson and is involved in the famous Battle of the Nile and, on the back of seeing Nelson’s brilliant and decisive leadership, he sets out to take opportunities, and associated risks, to show his own potential as a leader. His first attempt at leading a small action ends in failure and he is captured by the French but is then fortunate to be part of an immediate exchange of prisoners. He then plays a vital role in the defence of Acre against the advancing French army although, in the end, it requires a huge slice of good fortune for the city to withstand the siege.

I found the previous Kydd novel a little lacking in action, but I would say that Tenacious was the best of the series so far with a good amount of uncertainty in the plot, plenty going on and not too much emphasis on Kydd’s relationship with his ‘particular friend’ Nicholas Renzi – a character who I find to be somewhat tedious and over-blown. So Kydd’s story now moves on, with him being increasingly noticed by those in the higher echelons of the Royal Navy, something which will surely lead to rapid advancement of his career.