In this sequel to Black Drop, our protagonist Jago (who may - in the preceding story - have committed light treason) is onboard a mail ship bound for Philadelphia. His shot at redemption lies in protecting the Jay Treaty, an explosive UK-US political agreement. Unfortunately the treaty has vanished, a diplomat is dead, and their little British mail ship is being pursued by warships full of angry Frenchmen and pirates.

I found Blue Water more entertaining and accessible than Black Drop: the plot is more narrowly focused and the Georgian period detail less distracting. I also enjoy a good locked-room thriller/murder mystery.

Sadly, I found the central plot under-powered, and the solution to the key mystery Deus Ex Machina (I searched my eARC, and there was ZERO foreshadowing of the final twist, it came out of nowhere). I would have liked more fleshing out of the recurring characters such as Jago and Philpott, since I didn’t feel I learned anything new about either beyond Black Drop. However, I’m delighted Peter Williams reappeared, and was cheering him on at several points.

amazing

When I reviewed debut historical novel Black Drop by Leonora Nattrass, I observed that this was the sort of book which leaves one wishing for a sequel. Its eccentric protagonist, Laurence Jago, clerk to the English Foreign Office in the final years of the 18th Century, and the larger-than-life characters who cross his path, were so captivating, that the prospect of meeting them again was an enticing one.

That said, Black Drop worked perfectly as a standalone novel, so a sequel seemed too much to ask for. But here we are, less than a year later, and a second instalment – Blue Water – is in the offing. Iago, who ended up disgraced and expelled from His Majesty’s Service in Black Drop when his French sympathies were discovered, leaves his family home in Cornwall, and joins his friend and mentor William Philpott as a trainee journalist aboard the mailship Tankerville. Among fellow travellers on the Tankerville’s Atlantic crossing is the hapless Theodore Jay, son of the American envoy, who has been tasked with delivering to the British Ambassador at Philadelphia a treaty between Britain and America. This treaty, once ratified, will keep the newly independent nation from backing the French.

Unbeknown to Philpott, however, Iago has also been given a secret mission by his erstwhile boss, Foreign Secretary Lord Grenville – and an opportunity to redeem himself. But what seems like a relatively straightforward brief soon turns complicated when the Tankerville is visited by a suspicious death.

The change of setting to a “naval” one is inspired, allowing Nattrass to place her original cast of characters in a different context, thus providing a welcome contrast to her debut novel. The sea-sprayed tale she recounts owes much to the tradition of British writers of naval fiction, who duly get a mention in the acknowledgments: Nicholas Monsarrat, C.S. Forester and “the greatest of them all, Patrick O’Brian”.

Blue Water is a worthy successor to this lineage. Nattrass pulls out all the stops. Not only is there a devious mystery (or mysteries) at the novel’s heart, but it is also peopled with colourful characters and incidents – a young Irish actress (Iago’s love interest) and her performing bear; a clairvoyant French aristocrat who conducts a seance on board; references to maritime omens and superstitions; sea battles and attacks by giant creatures of the deep. But ultimately, what marks out this novel, like its predecessor, is its mixture of rip-roaring adventure and comedy, as well as the knowledge that, however unlikely this may appear, the plot is ultimately “based on a true story”.

4.5*

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