The Mountain of Gold

November 7, 2011
With swashbuckling suspense, royal intrigue, and high seas naval action, Davies’s witty second novel (following Gentleman Captain) continues the antics of audacious young Capt. Matthew Quinton. While serving King Charles II’s royal navy in 1663, Quinton captures a Muslim pirate who turns out to be an Irish renegade, and the Irishman spins a preposterous tale about a mountain of gold in Africa in a rash effort to save his life. Blinded by greed, King Charles sends Quinton, his ship, and the Irishman on a forlorn expedition to Dutch-held West Africa to find the treasure. Quinton and his men figure their expedition will provoke the expected and desired war with the Dutch, and that if the Dutch don’t kill them, then heat, disease, starvation, or angry natives will. Troubled by the king’s odd interest in his brother’s upcoming marriage to a “murderous harpy,” Quinton wonders why his own brother-in-law warns him that his mission to Africa must not succeed. Set 150 years before C.S. Forester’s Hornblower series, this rousing yarn provides enough clever foreshadowing to ensure more books in this excellent series.