On April 10, 2009, I did a VERY short review: "Love the battle, tactics, camaraderie, and the history. "This time, I got into it a bit more, LOL:Seventeenth in the Richard Sharpe fictional military history series and revolving around Major Richard Sharpe and the South Essex. This one takes place in England. Funny place to do battle with the regiment…My Take Heart-stopping as always! Richard is so terrifyingly naive. He scares me to death.I love Cornwell's descriptions, and the way in which he describes the "...plump...ripening orchards, grain fields bright with poppies, and pigs running free that could have fed an army corps for a week" that make England seem indeed a green and pleasant land. It's certainly a change from the scrubby fields of Spain!Poor Sharpe. Presented to the Prince of Wales, admired and honored, but pushed aside when there's money to be made. And the prince is a nutjob. How can anyone like being surrounded by yes-men? Although, I suppose when you're as nutty as George…The truly horrible part is the greed of the army and its officers, how they steal the shillings from their own soldiers. We thought our soldiers today were poorly paid. They're rich compared to these men.You can't help but laugh even as you hold your breath when Harper is being hunted and when they turn the depot at Chelmsford upside down. Treasure those moments for there is much too much of the anger this story will raise, for you know that this sort of disrespect and theft went on then, and still does.The StorySharpe is temporarily in charge of the regiment since Lieutenant Colonel Leroy died a few weeks back at Vitoria. Only to find that the War Office wants the South Essex broken up, its colors sent home, and the brutal reputation the South Essex has achieved tossed in a heap.But not if Sharpe can find the so-called non-existent Second Battalion in his race against the devils.The CharactersMajor Richard Sharpe has fought his way up from the ranks and is a brilliant tactician and rifleman. Sergeant Patrick Harper, an Ulsterman who has been with Sharpe through thick and thin, gets MacLaird's job; his wife, Isabella, is pregnant. Captain Peter d'Alembord and Lieutenant Harry Price (he'll replace Captain Thomas) come along with Sharpe to London.Privates Daniel Hagman and Clayton are still here along with Angel ( Sharpe's Honour, 16). There's also Regimental Sergeant Major MacLaird (d) and Lieutenant Andrews. Privates O'Grady, Kelleher, Rourke, Callaghan, Joyce, Donnell, the Pearce brothers, O'Toole, Fitzpatrick, and Halloran will do for Lynch. Major General Nairn sends Sharpe to London to get his regiment.Lord Simon Fenner, a politician and the Secretary of State at War, doesn't want the South Essex to get its replacements. Anne Camoynes, the dowager Countess of Camoynes, refused Fenner's offer of marriage so he's destroyed her. The former Lieutenant Colonel Lawford is now the one-armed Sir William Lawford who catches up with Richard at the Horse Guards ( Sharpe's Company, 13).Chelmsford DepotCaptain Carline, Lieutenant Merrill, and Lieutenant Pierce have no clue. Ted Carew is the armoury sergeant with a tale to tell.FoulnessLieutenant Colonel Bartholomew Girdwood of the tarred and shaped mustache is currently in command of the Second Battalion, South Essex. He's one of those with a fantasy of battle and war. Briggs is his batman. Sir Henry Simmerson is his patron, and he's promised his niece, Jane Gifford, in marriage to Girdwood. Don't know what will happen to her dog, Rascal! (She's Christian Gifford's sister; see Sharpe's Eagle, 8). Cross is Sir Henry's London butler. Sergeant Horatio Havercamp is one of the best recruiters in the battalion. Captain Finch will be Girdwood's partner in the hunt, Captain Hamish Smith, the barbaric, bullying Sergeant John Lynch, Sergeant Major Brightwell, Corporal Mason, Lieutenant Mattingley, and Captain Prior stick, while Lieutenant Ryker legs it. The new recruits include Charlie Weller and his dog, Buttons; Tom is a half-wit; Giles Marriott enlisted for all the wrong reasons; Jenkinson is one of the convicts; and, Sharpe and Harper enlist as Vaughn and O'Keefe.Horse GuardsLord John Rossendale delivers the Prince of Wales' invitation. Prince George, the Prince of Wales, is acting Regent for the king, and he greatly admires Sharpe. Prince Frederick, the Duke of York, and in charge of the army, does not. General Sir Barstan Maxwell is appalled, sir, appalled. Captain Mellors is in charge of the eagles. St. Giles RookeryMaggie Joyce rescued Sharpe when he ran away as a child, and she'll rescue him again. She's a gin goddess, a midwife, a procuress, and eight times a widow, for even Tom is gone. Cross-Eyed Moses will do the selling of Richard and Harper's fortune. Messrs. Hopkinson are Sharpe's army agents. Jem Lippett is one of the men after Sharpe. Belle works for Maggie.The CoverThe cover looks like a pen-and-ink sketch with some red and blue coloring against a white background. A black band across the top announces the author's name while a graphic image below is of an exhausted man on horseback, carrying a rifle, and Richard Sharpe in a fine red coat urging the horse on with both the horse and Richard neck deep in water. The title is what Sharpe seeks, for Sharpe's Regiment is in danger and must be rescued from the greedy paper pushers.
No. 17 in the Richard Sharpe series.[return][return]Sharpe and Sgt. Harper are sent back to England to discover the whereabouts of promised recruits for their battered South Essex regiment. What they discover is an illegal recruiting ring that auctions off newly-trained soldiers to regiments that have a hard time obtaining volunteers, such as those regiments that serve in the fever-ridden West Indies. Sharpe and Harper go undercover and steal back a newly-formed group of soldiers and through a brazen scheme, send them off to join Wellington s army. Sharpe being Sharpe, with his overactive libido, naturally there s a woman involved.[return][return]But it wouldn t be a Cornwell book without a rousing, bloody battle; in this installment, it s the description of Wellington s invasion of France. While not as exciting as some of the great battles that have already taken place, it still is a highly satisfactory ending to a book that is surprisingly good with a out-of-the-norm story line. Another whacking good story.[return][return]Sharpe, Harper and their colleagues continue to entertain, and as usual there is a fascinating cast of one-time characters. Cornwell excels in this kind of characterization, and his books continue to bring the era and the people in it vibrantly alive. Highly recommended.
What do You think about Sharpe's Regiment (2001)?
This is not exactly a prototypical Sharpe novel in that there is no pitched battle to be had against Napoleon's forces. Instead, Major Richard Sharpe is back on English soil and his enemy is the British army itself. The wheres and the whos matter little in a Bernard Cornwell book, because you're going to get pretty much the same thing every time, and if you like/love it once, you'll like/love it again and again. Cornwell knows his winning formula inside and out. He excels at action sequences. He knows how to pile the pain on his main character. He can draw up a super bad baddy with the best of them. And, he can construct an improbable-victory-against-impossilbe-odds scenario like nobody's business. You're in good hands with Bernard Cornwell, provided these are the hands you want to place yourself in.Why wouldn't you? Well, once you've read one Sharpe book you've read them all. Yes, the scenery changes occasionally, Sharpes allies and enemies vary somewhat now and then, and the path Sharpe has to take to win the day isn't always exactly the same. However, Cornwell's formula is quite transparent to even the most careless reader. Sharpe will always be wronged by someone, often someone within his own army and most usually a higher up officer. He'll have to prove himself, time and again. If there's an alluring woman to be had, Sharpe will have her, and there are always alluring women to be had. Sharpe is a tall, dark, ruggedly handsome soldier, so regardless of the woman's background, each and every one of them goes squishy on him. Geez, listen to me whine, whine whine! By now you're probably looking around, thinking you meant to read a book review and accidentally stepped into a vineyard. Look, the bottom line is, Bernard Cornwell's got a good thing going and he's riding it for all its worth. Either you like it or don't. If you do, check your critical eye at the door and hope on board for an enjoyable trip back to war-torn, early 1800s Europe. There you will find a lovable, right bastard to root for. He'll do some dirty deeds for dirt cheap and in some way, shape or form he'll get his due in a satisfying end.
—Jason Koivu
It's really palpable now how much Cornwell changed his style from the early adventures to this later example... The somewhat bland, morose Richard Sharpe who led the lone survivors of his old Regiment to Freedom and/or victory has turned into a proper heroic figure; confident, charming, charismatic, a grown leader now leading by example and admired by the men he leads for it. And while this story probably is the one with the least amount of fighting in Sharpe's adventures it has one of the best
—Bjoern
The Richard Sharpe series continues with this excellent work in which Richard returns to England prior to the invasion of France to retrieve his battalion reserves. What is supposed to be a simple trip to bring more men back to the battlefield turns out to be a struggle in which Richard uncovers a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of the British government that makes him a marked man. Once again, Bernard Cornwell tells a great story that brings together the events of the Napoleonic wars in a series that every reader can enjoy.
—John Reas
