Ramage & the Dido (The Lord Ramage Novels, No. 18)

Rating:
Summary: Alas, the last
Review: I'm glad to have this volume in print again, but it's perhaps the most disappointing in the series. It's the last installment in an unfinished saga by the late Dudley Pope. Everything here is MUCH too easy for Ramage (still a captain) and his trusty, rich, and invulnerable Calypso crew, now shipping out in the Dido, a formidable 3rd rate "74" ship of the line. In some ways (simple lingo, explanatory vignettes, lots of action) this last volume is an easy introduction to nautical fiction. Or one could say there's lots of padding, one too many books in the series. After the unique setting of the penultimate novel #17, fighting the exotic Saracens, Pope is so tired that he even has Ramage return to the scene of one of his greatest accomplishments in the Caribbean (#7 Ramage's Diamond) and substantially repeats the same achievements to a still finer degree. Ramage fights five nearly bloodless ship battles and leads a cutting out expedition in boats. It's pretty incredible, Ramage is never at a loss for tricks and the French always are. I never felt much tension, suspense, or terror in the story, not strong points in Pope's prose anyway.