In total defiance of publication times and related petty temporal concerns, Captain Aubrey gets what I call the television Jon Snow treatment: the "politics is petty and awful and I shall not sully my hands with it" characterisation. Which always turns out badly, because politics is part of life and refusing to acknowledge this is arrogant, ignorant bullshit, and it's left (as it always is) to the characters who actually engage with reality to clean up the mess. As is typical of the TVJS approach, Aubrey is seen by his peers as a blameless martyr, but really... what kind of idiot takes financial tips from a stranger, shares them with people he knows to be absolutely untrustworthy, and then refuses to take advice from legal experts (and anyone with two brain cells in their head) as to the damning political environment he finds himself in, and the consequences thereof for himself and his family?

This idiot, that's who. I still found myself feeling sorry for him, and I'm a bit annoyed about that. My previous rants on him aside, he's not a stupid man, and his refusal to learn is therefore irritating rather than admirable. Even so, the minimal sea battles in this, and the much more extensive political shenanigans, made this one of the more enjoyable books of the series for me.