Written by: Richard Woodman
Submitted By: Russ Campbell
I've just finished the 1st of the Nathaniel Drinkwater series by Richard Woodman and am pleased to report it was a really good read. Lots of action and a realistic recreation of the turn of the 19th century British navy.
Generally speaking, the British beat the phiss out of the Yanks at every turn so we're not likely to see a movie made of this one [smile].
There are 14 books in this series (American Revolution through Napoleonic Wars) and Woodman has another three in his "William Kite" series, which centres on the Seven Years War up to the American Revolution. I think he will be adding to the William Kite series, but sadly no more Nat Drinkwater.
Woodman is an extremely prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction. The 1st Drinkwater book, Eye of the Fleet, is like an O'Brian with about 100 pages of "filler" left out -- it's very tightly written (only 175 small-print paper-back pages), incident filled with lots of action taking place mainly at sea. As a straight thriller/action historical novel, I'd have to give it 85-90 out of 100. As most of these books do, it lacks the pure literary merit of O'Brian's best works, but it's a winner nevertheless.
