Tom Chatto: Second Mate

As Booklist said last year, "McCutchan still may not be all that well known to American readers, [but] in his native Britain he has published more novels of the sea than Patrick O'Brian, Dudley Pope, and C. S. Forester put together." With this rousing new adventure series set in the early years of this century - when Britannia still ruled the waves, and sails were still as common a sight as steampipes - the wind is finally filling Philip McCutchan's sails. The Second Mate is the second novel featuring Tom Chatoo, a young, eager, honest Irishman learning the ropes as a British seaman. This time, he's installed as second mate on the Orvega, a ship bound round Cape Horn. Nearing the Cape, they find an errant windjammer in their path, and Chatto is charged with saving it - a task that demands all his skills and bravery... and a little help from an unlikely source.