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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sharpe as ever!, 25 April 2003
For long-time fans like me who found "Sharpe's Prey" a bit below par, I'm pleased to say that this one returns to first principles, frog-bashing in the Peninsula; and the author is back on form. If you wondered what happened to Sharpe, Harper & Co. after they joined forces on the retreat to Vigo (Sharpe's Rifles, Jan.1809) and before Talavera (Sharpe's Eagle, July 1809), here's the answer. The Greenjackets are in the wilds of Portugal, where the best Sharpe stories are set, on a mission for Capt. Hogan, the future spy-master. Marshal Soult, 'Duke of Damnation' and aspiring King of Portugal, is closing in. Is all lost? Wait! an obscure sepoy general called Wellesley has landed at Lisbon ...I'll leave the plot there except to say that it's a ripping yarn (and I've been reading them for twenty years). We meet an upper-class villain fit to take on Sir Henry Simmerson; a beautiful, runaway heiress; and a young Portuguese officer of character and education who has a thing or two to learn from Sharpe. Deja vu? Well, some of the best vus are deja. There have been better ones than this but not many. The atmosphere is as thick as Dan Hagman's tea. There are passages of real sardonic humour, which comes as a relief after the last outing. The action sequences are many and unsurpassed. My only regret is that an old favourite, Sweet William, hasn't shown up yet. The time slots are filling up but Cornwell makes good use of them. Sharpe and Harper march again. What are you waiting for? And if you didn't understand any of the above, still read the book.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Wall to wall dead Frenchmen", 28 Nov 2007
Someone once summarised the essence of a Richard Sharpe novel as "wall to wall dead Frenchmen" and there is truth in this. After all they are (mostly) set in the Napoleonic War and killing Frenchmen is what Sharpe and his fellow soldiers are there to do. But Bernard Cornwell's books about the up-from-the-ranks rifleman will also feature a plot which requires Sharpe to use all his ingenuity and bravery to succeed against the odds, a woman in distress whom Sharpe must rescue, and a villain, from within his own side but usually of a higher class, whom Sharpe must outwit and (perhaps) kill.
"Sharpe's Havoc" has all the ingredients but in a well-developed way. The military clashes are well-observed and in line with historical fact (apart from the insertion of Sharpe, of course), and there is a deeper sense of the comradeship of the riflemen and of what war does to people than some of the other books, while both the woman and the villain are real people in whom one can take an interest.
It is a bit bloodier than some of the other Sharpe novels, the violence is not caricatured or sanitised, and the general atmosphere is more intense than some. Cornwell's novels can be uneven in their quality (in Amazon terms they vary between 3 and 5 stars) and some were beginning to fear the series was getting a bit tired. This novel has dispelled all such fears.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sharpe has his revenge, 17 Sep 2007
'Sharpe's Havoc' is set in the spring of 1809: the French, under Marshal Soult, have just taken Oporto and now effectively control northern Portugal. During the retreat from Oporto Sharpe and his men from the 95th Rifles find themselves cut off from the British army, and must take to the hills. Meanwhile, rumour has it that Sir Arthur Wellesly (the later Duke of Wellington) is coming out to Portugal to take on the French. But Sharpe has more to worry about than the French as he is confronted with a dubious Colonel Christopher, detached from the Foreign Office...
This is a novel in the best Sharpe-tradition, full of action, nothing too complicated in the plot, and easy to read (it took me slightly more than a day of non-stop reading). The final chapters in the hills of northern Portugal when Sharpe exacts his revenge are among the best I've read so far in any Sharpe-novel.
By the way, if you're planning to read the Sharpe-novels chronologically it's good to know that, contrary to what it says on the inside cover pages of the HarperCollins paperbacks, this novel does not come after but BEFORE 'Sharpe's Eagle' (which is set in July 1809 during the Talavera-campaign).
So now it's on to 'Sharpe's Gold'. I do love the smell of a fresh Sharpe-novel in the morning! ;-)
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