- Paperback: 272 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; New edition edition (17 July 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0006498930
- ISBN-13: 978-0006498933
- Product Dimensions: 17.6 x 11 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 740,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
In the spirit of Sharpe comes another adventure of Sergeant Jack Crossman and the Crimean War. Rousing stories of battle adventures and the horrors of campaign life are related with meticulous historical detail.
Sergeant Jack Crossman of the 88th, the Connaught Rangers, nicknamed ‘Fancy Jack’ by the troops for his aristocratic birth yet choosing to join the ranks instead of buying a commission, is now established, with his gang of motley troublemakers from the regiment, as one of the British Army’s secret weapons in the Crimean War.
After the Battle of Balaclava and the terrible massacre of the Light Brigade, the British Army is busy regathering its forces in the Crimea. Morale is low, supplies are scarce and the elements unfriendly. Sergeant Jack Crossman is set on another near-suicide mission, a ‘fox hunt’, to cut off some Russian supply routes to the north, and once again risks life and limb to guarantee the success of the British Army…
Meanwhile, the Russians launch another attack for possession of Shell Hill, and it’s another black powder battle for Crossman and the troops…
From the Author
The 3rd Crossman Novel
In this third of the adventures of Sergeant Jack Crossman the battle scene (Inkerman) is the longest I have yet written. That's because it was a long battle and because the action was continuous over almost a day, with many incidents. I think Crossman comes of war age in this novel. It is also the first time he becomes involved in 'internal affairs' and is used to tidy up problems within the British Army, much to his distaste. The way I marry my fictional tale to the historical facts is to try to keep to the true overall events and fit my fictional story within those events. Thus all the action on the Inkerman battlefield, the incidents and accidents, no matter how unlikely or bizarre they may seem, actually happened.
In this third of the adventures of Sergeant Jack Crossman the battle scene (Inkerman) is the longest I have yet written. That's because it was a long battle and because the action was continuous over almost a day, with many incidents. I think Crossman comes of war age in this novel. It is also the first time he becomes involved in 'internal affairs' and is used to tidy up problems within the British Army, much to his distaste. The way I marry my fictional tale to the historical facts is to try to keep to the true overall events and fit my fictional story within those events. Thus all the action on the Inkerman battlefield, the incidents and accidents, no matter how unlikely or bizarre they may seem, actually happened.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Read it. Now. If you enjoyed the Sharpe novels this will truly appeal to you. Fast paced and full of action, the book is the third novel set in the Crimean War of the 1850's. Similar to Sharpe, the hero is a man whose peers in the army are from another social class, only this time Sgt Crossman is from the Upper Class whilst he stands in the ranks with the 'common' men, so he fights both the Russians and prejudice within his own army. A difficult book to put down, you'll be keeping the midnight oil burning with this one.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book,the third in the series, chronicles the further adventures of Sergeant "Fancy Jack" Crossman of the 88th Foot (Connaught Rangers) and his band of regimental outcasts as they go on dangerous and covert missions to further the Anglo/Franco cause during the crimean war.
Our hero jack crossman is a complete role reversal of Richard Sharpe: Sergeant Crossman is an aristocrat in the ranks. This makes for an interesting character but those who surround him are very flat in comparison. I REALY HATE Sgt. Crossman's friend, a rogueish american newspaper corespondant, who is a complete steryotype who is clearly there just to capture the US audiance. (heaven forbid they ever write a book without an american hero in it) Somehow he even manages to tag along and help out on some missions.(yeah, like that would ever really happen)
Anyway, aside from a flat supporting cast and the useless and anoying american writer, the book is a battlefield adventure in the style of Sharpe (it even says so on the cover) but lacks the gusto of the great Bernard Cornwell classics.
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
We are informed on the dust-jacket of this book that the author, under another name, has won 'many awards' for adult and children's fiction. If that is so, the author, whatever his name, has had the mother of all off-days with this one: it's amazingly bad. There's much to be learned here about how not to write a novel. Nobody expects great literature, but the narrative style is so wooden and flat-footed you could use it for clogs; characterization is paper-thin where it's attempted at all; plot and dialogue are occasionally laughable (but not, unfortunately, humorous); even the derring-do is done by numbers. One unintentional high point comes when Fancy Jack lectures an American journalist on the pros and cons of the purchase system for commissions in the British Army. He's just returned from a secret mission paddling a canoe round the Crimea, having been slightly sabered by a Cossack en route. Does this put a crimp in his peroration? No: the author has done his homework and the hero has to spout it; it's that kind of book.
It should go without saying that this sort of thing is not in the same league as - or, bluntly, anywhere in sight of - the Sharpe novels. It might do for a backward twelve-year-old who is being weaned off Harry Potter. Otherwise, save your money.
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