Captain Monsoon

Despite its quota of conventionally sure-fire ingredients--intrepid hero, brave sailors, vicious villain, lady in distress, and nonstop action--the latest entry in Suthren's usually engaging 18th-century seafaring series is a disappointment. Capt. Edward Mainwaring of the British Royal Navy (seen last in The Black Cockade ) and his man-o'-war, Pallas , are in the Indian Ocean, charged with foiling French efforts to form a fleet and attack India. While rescuing an English noblewoman from a French gunship, Mainwaring is captured and sent to a dungeon on Mauritius. Escaping only to discover that Pallas has been destroyed, he sets out to gather more ships to fight the French. After the monsoon and the deus-ex-machina arrival of a British frigate (carrying Mainwaring's fiancee), Mainwaring's climactic battle with his enemy, the Chevalier Rigaud de la Roche-Bourbon, ends with the lady showing that she's a crack shot with a pistol. Explicit gore and hints of kinky sex don't make up for the sloppy writing (three times in the space of a page, characters ``hiss'' rather than speak their dialogue). In previous Mainwaring adventures, Suthren has buckled the swash more tightly. (Mar.)