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Storyline

Major Richard Sharpe awaits the opening shots of the army's campaign with grim expectancy. For victory depends on the increasingly fragile alliance between Britain and Spain - an alliance that must be maintained at any cost.

Pierre Ducos, the wily French Intelligence officer, sees a chance both to destroy the alliance and to achieve a personal revenge on Richard Sharpe. When the lovely spy. La Marquesa, takes a hand in the game, Sharpe finds himself enmeshed in a web of political intrigue for which his military expertise has left him fatally unprepared. Soon, he is a fugitive - a man hunted by enemy and ally alike...

Review

This is not a bad story, it is quite good. The problem is it takes Sharpe out of his normal environment, and also takes him away from his men. So Harper and the rest of his motley band remain very much in the background.

Sharpe is of course not a spy or an investigator, which would make it unlikely that Wellington would put him out into the field to sort out what is going on in Spain. Sharpe has always been a blunt instrument - but one with a savage lust for glory.

As Sharpe novels go this has quite a low body count, it does have two very good adversaries, in Ducos (a great creation), and the offensive El Matarife, who thinks of nothing of killing a girl, just to get rid of Sharpe. He duly meets his come uppance in a fitting manner.

One of the things that did surprise me was the power of the Inquisition, which I hadn't realised was still around in the early part of the 19th Century. I tend to think of this organisation as one from the dark ages.

The story finally comes alive with the Battle of Vittoria, which not only ended French interests in Spain but also cost them a huge amount in lost money and fine art. From the narrative, I'm not sure whether it was Wellington, being brilliant or the stupidity of General Jourdan, in leaving his right flank open. However much the enemy seems to be doing what is expected, to leave a flank totally unguarded, seems to me smug over confidence. The reasoning, we shall never really know.

A reasonable story, which lights up towards the end.

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