Commodore Hornblower, having recovered from the typhus which sent him back to England to convalesce at the end of the last book, is charged with the tricky task of recovering a ship that has mutinied off the coast of France. Having accomplished his goal, he is presented with the opportunity to foment a rebellion against Napoleon in northern France, which leads to an extended sequence off the water in which Hornblower takes up politics. As telegraphed by the title, Hornblower is elevated to the peerage for his efforts, but this leads to a rift in his relationship with Lady Barbara.
This book, more than any other, focuses on the women in Hornblower's life, from poor dead Maria to Marie to Lady Barbara, none of whom he does right by. I give Forester points for hinting at Hornblower's basic selfishness in his relationships with them, but one can't help but feel that all three are important only to the extent they further Hornblower's story: They are ripe for the fridging. Worse, ...
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... Forester kills off Bush in this installment. Granted, it's off-screen, and there's no body found; Forester had some experience as a Hollywood screenwriter, and if there's one thing you can count on in a movie, it's that if you don't see a body, they're not really dead. I hold out some hope for poor loyal Bush, but it seems more likely that his is yet another corpse stuffed in the fridge for Hornblower's inner monologue to pontificate over.
Still, despite my distaste for parts of the book, the overall story line is compelling, and Hornblower is left at the end of the narrative in an unresolved Lady-or-the-Tiger situation. It is an open and explicit question what will ensue when he meets Lady Barbara again, made the more intriguing by the fact that, when it was actually published, it would be twelve years before the author returned to answer the question, as he went back and filled in his character's backstory before writing forward in the chronology again.
