COMMAND A KING'S SHIP

After the Revolutionary War, the British Admiralty sends Captain Richard Bolitho, of the Royal Navy, on a dodgy diplomatic voyage from Spithead to India via the Canary Islands. While watering off the western coast of Africa, a slave ship's crew, and later the would-be slaves, attack his ship, the HMS UNDINE, with cannons, cutlasses, and showers of rocks. The tenor-toned, nasal Michael Jayston has a unique manner of speech for each of the characters, even the drunken ones, and he spits out the nautical nomenclature like a seasoned salt. Alexander Kent's novel about late eighteenth-century sailing ships will both entertain and educate. Its rich vocabulary is especially suited to stimulate young adult minds. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 03]