The Sword of Islam is middle-of-the-road Sabatini--certainly not one of his worst, but nowhere near the heights of Scaramouche or The Sea-Hawk. Prospero Adorno is a leading naval mercenary in Renaissance Italy whose feud with Admiral Andrea Dorea and his family leads to all sorts of complications. Prospero realizes this may all stem from a misunderstanding, but other forces--including pressure from his own family for revenge--keep that misunderstanding from being cleared up.

The Sword of Islam is the Barbary corsair Dragut, mentioned in passing in The Sea-Hawk (written much earlier). He really doesn't come into play until late in the book, but his raids play a role in resolving the conflict between Prospero and Doria.

The other reviewer mentioned the respectful treament of followers of Islam in this book; that's true of many of Sabatini's works, in which the greater criticism is leveled at hypocritical Christians who don't live what they preach (though I've not read his book on Torquemada, it seems from his other novels that Sabatini was contemptuous of the Inquisition, and Captain Blood contains a passage or two on the problems of a "Christian country" punishing those who practice "Christian charity).

Recommended with three of five stars.

An awesome book by a great author. It amazes me that this incredible story is out of print! It is one of the few books that shows Christians and Muslims on the same level, without playing the Arabs down. This historically correct story tells a tale of a Genuese captain in a fight against the Arab pirates of the mediterranean. He is torn between the loyaltyto his family, to his land, and to an oath to avenge his father death, inflicted on him by a fellow genuese, the best admiral of his time. The story is breathtaking and impossible to put down. It is highly recommended to anyone interested in history, in adventure and just in a good read.

What a pleasure to read a book written in 1902, and find a fast moving, pulse pounding adventure story written for adults. If your taste runs to adventurous tales of old like 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' or the entertaining historical romances of Georgette Heyer you will be pleased by the pen of Rafael Sabintini. Mr. Sabintini wrote dozens of historical novels including 'Captain Blood' and 'The Sea Hawk', so this is just the first offering of many from a master storyteller.

Saint Martin's Summer is one of Sabatini's second-tier books, good but not great. The title refers to what we now call an Indian Summer, and in this novel it has a double meaning.

The soldier Martin de Garnache is dispatched by the Queen Regent of France into Dauphiny to retrieve Mlle. Valérie de La Vauvraye, who managed to write her begging aid and deliverance from the Dowager Duchess of Condillac. The Duchess, her guardian and quite a powerful figure in the province, was prepared to force de La Vauvraye's marriage to her son, even though the girl was betrothed to the Duchess's absent stepson, the new Duke. Valérie views that more as a matter of pledged word than something for enthusiasm, however.

Naturally, the Duchess is not thrilled about the royal intervention, and with the aid of the gross and besotted Seneschal of Dauphiny and some hired troops, she sets out to frustrate Garnache's mission.

The middle-aged (for the era) soldier, meanwhile, wants little to do with feminine nonsense and finds the whole mission humiliating. But for him, duty is duty, and he finds the young lady more endearing as he faces tremendous obstacles in getting her away from Condillac. That feeling is reciprocated, and as matters are resolved Valérie points out that the morrow is Saint Martin's Day and though it is November it is yet warm. She tells Garnache, who understands the allusion, that he is still a long way yet from the November of his life.

Though one of Sabatini's earlier novels, Saint Martin's Summer is pretty well done in terms of writing and story, and if you enjoyed some of his more well-known and more complex books, I would recommend this as well.

After scoring hits two decades into his career with Scaramouche and Captain Blood, Sabatini's American publishers began reprinting some of his earlier works, though he tried to suppress the ones he thought inferior. But even those were being brought across the Atlantic and he eventually agreed to their republication as well, only with an apologetic preface branding them "sins of [his] literary nonage" that he would rather "bury in oblivion." The Lion's Skin is one of those books.

Justin Caryll was raised by his guardian, Sir Richard, knowing neither his deceased mother nor his father, the Earl of Ostermore. Ostermore and Sir Richard had been friends and suitors of the same woman, and Richard grew to hate his friend after the former won the French lady and then went back to England, abandoning her pregnant and alone. At her dying request, Richard raised her son, and Caryll was taught that one day he would be called upon to exact revenge on his father.

As the book begins, Justin Caryll is an adult who journeys to England with the means to ruin his father, only he has misgivings about the whole idea. As he tries to decide what to do, he makes Ostermore's acquaintance, earns the enmity of Ostermore's son -- Viscount Rotherby -- and gets on rather well with Ostermore's ward, Hortensia Winthrop (what a name!). Meanwhile, he is rightfully suspected by his enemies of being a Jacobite agent and he realizes that there is very little to hate in his mild-mannered father.

In the end, Rotherby and a few others think they have what they need to get Caryll out of the way, but too late they learn the meaning of that phrase from Henry V that inspired the title, and which Caryll actually quotes: "the man that once did sell the lion's skin/while the beast liv'd, was killed with hunting him."

The story is fairly good, the writing mediocre, and the historical accuracy not all that great (I think). Still, it's entertaining.

Aspects of this remind me of other Sabatini novels, making me wonder whether he re-wrote certain elements into later works. Ostermore is a lot like the Lord of Gavrillac and the Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr in Scaramouche, and there are similarities to Master-At-Arms and a few other books as well.

The Lion's Skin is worth a read, but only after you've covered Sabatini's better novels first.