SOURCE: “O'Brian Back at the Helm,” in Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 20, 1996, p. 3.

In the following review, Balzar offers a positive assessment of The Yellow Admiral.

The Yellow Admiral is Patrick O'Brian's 18th novel in the British seafaring adventures of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin—that most improbably wonderful series of grown-up literary-historical flights of escapism. Here, in the year 1814, “The Yellow Admiral” refers not to a cowardice in battle but to an admiral without ships to command.

No use dwelling on the plot, though. The no-longer secret is that plots of O'Brian's tales are like grapes to wine: pretty much essential, but not by themselves sublime. Virtuosity proves itself when a sip of the story actuates the senses and stirs cravings that become habits, no matter where you find yourself being taken.

At this point, it can be noted that there is a split in the...