The bottom line is that after we defeat the armed forces of Iraq, that we will want to and need to provide stability throughout that country.
Brings [O'Brian's] achievement to a new height. . . . Such is O'Brian's power to possess the imagination that I found I was living in his world as much as my own, wanting to know what happens next. That is the real test. Any contemporary novelist should recognize in Patrick O'Brian a Master of the Art.