#ReadThis #CaptainGreysGambit by #J.H.Gelernter @WWNorton
March is supposed to come in like a lion and come out like a lamb they say...but it is seeming like a lion with colder temperatures lately and upcoming. A great opportunity to still hibernate with a great book! And Captain Grey's Gambit is just what the book critic ordered in terms of high level adventure, history and style! W.W. Norton has published another winner and note this will be available soon (see below).
For all that love the high seas, Napoleon, France, England, chess, drama and adventure, this is for you. And of course you do, because you are on Whom You Know! We applaud the high level of writing executed within these covers in a current era where many are impressed with the ephemeral and the hollow written word, Gelernter evidences with this work that quality matters. This will appeal to everyone with high-level intellectual pursuits.
You'll catch on to vocabulary you might not know: Sloop is a one-masted sailboat but you know that from The Beach Boys...and here it's not around Nassau town you will roam. There's some classy cursing: "not giving a fig." Barbarossa is red beard.
You're going back in time a couple of centuries, yet the characters are completely relatable. For everyone into the flatbread craze (Peachy herself likes a more fluffy italian or french version) you'll be happy to see it eaten here. Grey, the obvious protagonist, is a reader of botany which we found Poirot-esque (bien sur mes amis the vegetable marrows!). Military adventure, intrigue and action are written and weaved so well with the plot slowly unfolding to your entertainment.
Captain Grey's Gambit is Highly Recommended by Whom You Know.
It’s December 1803. Napoleon has ordered his invasion fleet to storm the beaches of southern England as part of a brazen effort to expand the French Empire. However, before the French can attack, the leader of the French Resistance in the German states informs British naval intelligence that one of Napoleon’s top advisors, Joseph Leclerc, has become disenchanted with Napoleon’s increasingly autocratic rule and wants to join the royalist court-in-exile in London. Leclerc’s defection is tremendously good news for Britain. If Leclerc can escape France, he will be able to assist the English as they fight off Napoleon’s armies. Determined to get Leclerc on British soil, the naval intelligence service calls in Captain Thomas Grey—an exceptional intelligence agent, a formidable swordsman, and a skilled chess player—and entrusts him with the task of smuggling Leclerc from a chess tournament in Frankfurt to a safe house in London. But getting Leclerc to safety may prove too difficult, even for Grey. A historical thriller for fans of The Queen’s Gambit, James Bond, and Patrick O’Brian, CAPTAIN GREY’S GAMBIT: A Novel [W. W. Norton & Company; April 5, 2022; $25.95 Hardcover] is a spellbinding story of early nineteenth-century espionage that will put you on the edge of your seat.
Captain Grey’s adventure begins on New Year’s Day 1804 at Number 10 Downing Street. A butler leads him to the cabinet room, where Sir Arnold Woolworth, the prime minister’s private secretary, is seated beside a chessboard. Sir Arnold initiates a game, beats Grey in fifteen moves, and then hands Grey a sealed note to deliver to Sir Edward Banks, the chief of naval intelligence. Grey goes directly to Sir Edward’s office and presents the note, which Banks read aloud: “A fine player—needs refining—too eager to sacrifice pieces—could with training be a credible competitor.” After Sir Edward considers Sir Arnold’s assessment, he tells Grey his plan for getting Joseph Leclerc to London. Grey will refine his chess skills with a former champion now teaching physics at Cambridge, then attend an upcoming international chess tournament in Frankfurt where he’ll compete alongside Leclerc. As fellow competitors they’ll be able to meet privately; under normal circumstances, Leclerc would be closely guarded by Napoleon’s secret police. Under the guise of a plausible entrant to the tournament, Grey will orchestrate Leclerc’s escape from the estate where the tournament is being held, and escort him through Germany and across the North Sea to Britain.
But when Grey arrives in Frankfurt his mission becomes much more complicated: Leclerc has brought his twenty-year-old daughter, Genevieve, to the tournament. She’s an ardent Bonapartist, entirely unaware of her father’s plans, and Leclerc wants Grey to bring her with them to London—against her will. As Grey tries to rearrange the escape, another fly appears in the ointment: Leclerc makes it to the final round of the tournament; one of the final two survivors of an original two-hundred-odd entrants. With Leclerc determined to play, the escape must happen in daylight, in front of a crowd. Grey is compelled to shove Genevieve into a coach and gag her with his handkerchief, and Napoleon’s henchmen are on their trail from the start. Although Grey gets Leclerc and his furious daughter safely to the forests north of Frankfurt, he can’t say whether they’ll make it alive to a barge en route to Rotterdam and then a merchant ship bound for England. Or if Genevieve Leclerc will fulfill a vow to escape the escape party. Their journey is about to become more harrowing with twists and turns Grey can’t expect.
CAPTAIN GREY’S GAMBIT is the second novel in J. H. Gelernter’s lauded Thomas Grey series, continuing a story that’s “smart, fast, twisty, and dangerous” (Lee Child) in a “richly imagined early nineteenth-century world” (Richard Snow). Readers who loved Hold Fast, as well as those who are encountering Thomas Grey for the first time, will finish this novel clamoring for more.
About the Author:
J. H. Gelernter is the author of the novel Hold Fast. He lives in Connecticut.
Title: Captain Grey’s Gambit: A Novel
Author: J. H. Gelernter
ISBN: 978-0-393-86706-0
Publication Date: April 5, 2022
