Frenchman's Creek, book review. (Daphne du Maurier)

There's an old adage that I bet you've all used at least once in your lives: Never judge a book by its cover, and with this book - well, the edition I read anyway - that couldn't be further from the truth.

We're back in Cornwall (it is du Maurier after all) and we're at the country estate of Navron House, but hold on a minute, what's this? Our heroine, Lady Dona St. Columb has left her husband in London and demanded to be left in peace. Has told him that she requires space to think, a place to be herself, free from the confines of their life in the city, the endless dinner parties, polite smiles and acceptance of invitations from people she doesn't actually like or care for!

Oh, and it gets better.

There's a pirate on the lose, a Frenchman at that, and he's outwitting the local lords and landowners, pilfering their wares and interfering with their womenfolk, or so it is said, but on stumbling upon a ship in a creek by her land, Lady Dona is kidnapped, albeit temporarily - for the pirate is indeed a thief and a philanderer - but he's also much, much more.

He is not slovenly or cutthroat, his ship and his crew are honourable hard working thieves and furthermore, this dashing pirate (Aubery) knows more about her ladyship than he has any right too; but how?

Well, we soon find out and their love affair unfolds, and there is passion and nudity, sex and thievery - bear in mind here that this book was written in nineteen forty-one by a woman - and I love that she writes so passionately about a woman cutting her ties from her husband, freeing herself from the life that was expected or her, on entering into an adulterous affair with a pirate, and a Frenchman to boot (you should remember that the war was on and France had fallen when this book was first published).

Du Maurier's flagrant disregard for propriety is one thing but her depth of characters, her ability to have the reader rooting for the pirate and the adulterer as opposed the law abiding citizenry of Cornwall - whose possessions and women are being stolen and defiled remember - is simply brilliant, and talking of brilliance, Aubery's daring raid on Navron house and Lady Dona's dinner party, where he and his cohorts rob her guests of their jewels and their dignity, the theft of Phillip Rashleigh's merchant ship from the harbour in Fowey and the Frenchman's escape attempt at the end (no spoilers here) drip so delectably from the page you just drink them in and are, in my opinion, worth reading the book for alone.

This is only the third du Maurier book I've read and as with My Cousin Rachel, which I put off reading for fear I wouldn't like it as much as Rebecca, it has been sitting on my shelf for well over a year but as soon as I finished the first chapter I knew I'd made that same mistake, I'd left it too long. Du Maurier's writing is simply superb here, her grasp of the English language sublime and with it's period use of certain words, is a joy to read - Susan Hill I think, is her modern equivalent and is why she was given permission to scribe Rebecca's sequel, Mrs De Winter - but I don't think even she can equal du Maurier and you all know how much I love Susan Hill.

Frenchman's Creek is only a short book but it lacked nothing for it. Four and a half stars.

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