Sharpe's Fury: Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Barrosa, March 1811

Good fall asleep reading, except you keep wanting to read another chapter. Bernard Cornwell continues his story about Richard Scharpe. Richard Sharpe is a fictional character in the tradition of the Horatio Hornblower series by CS Forrester. Instead of following the rise of a Navy midshipman rising through the ranks of the British Navy (interestingly following a similiar path as Nelson). Richard Sharp is a the soldier on the land directly fighting Napoleon. The story by itself is exciting and would be enough. For me the frosting on the cake is the way Bernard weaves the history into a fictional story. The reader comes away understanding Spain's attitude towards France. The fear the French had for the Spanish gurella fighters. The tensions and anger between the Spanish governments and England. It's also intrigueing to compare the foibles of a great man in the early 1800s and compare that with our political leaders today. I can imagine thier are men in Richard Sharpe's situation cleaning up political and other indiscretions in our time as well. Richard Sharpe is similiar to an 18th Century James Bond, though the gadgets are replaced with a determination, viscousness and raw edge not seen in Roger Moore's James Bond, that allows him to step across the grey areas of right and wrong. Instead focusing on staying alive and accomplishing a goal no matter how sordid or morally unclear. Enjoyed the book a great deal.

If you get up early in the morning for work, or to get the kids off to school, this book and other Cornwell books are not for you. They is are impossible to put down. They are proverbial page turners. My wife, here-to-fore, has been contented to read the "classics"; all of the English writers and most Vampire novels. But now, she can't put the Sharpe series down. My only regret is that we didn't find out about Cornwell earlier. Excellent writer.

I am sad. "Sharpe's Fury" was my last Sharpe novel. I'd read the others in more or less chronological order, then gone back to read this, the most recently published and inserted midway in the series. For me, there will be no more Sharpe wenches. There will be no more craven aristocrats, in commands they don't deserve, plotting Sharpe's demise, nor more admirable officers Sharpe and other men would follow through the gates of hell. There will be no more moments where the Napoleonic Wars hang in the balance, no more Sharpe treasures plundered or lost, no more intrigues with French spies. There will be no more riveting battle scenes, drawn in enough detail for the military buff but clearly enough for the novice to follow, with the human element so dramatically but naturally woven into the scene's fabric. And no more chestnuts pulled out of the fire by Richard Sharpe, one of fiction's greatest soldiers, raised from the gutter to find the only thing he does well - fight. I feel a grief similar to that felt when finishing the Jack Aubrey series by Patrick O'Brian. In this episode Sharpe and Harper, on a patrol near the border of English-controlled Portugal and French-held Spain, are separated with a few men and an injured brigadier, and end up in Cadiz, the only part of Spain not taken by France. The British ambassador there, Henry Wellesley - brother of Lord Wellington - is embroiled in scandal. The love letters he wrote to a dubious woman are being made public by unknown enemies. Called in to handle the matter, threatening as it does England's delicate relations with Spain, is Pumphrey, the fey Foreign Office spy. Sharpe, available for the moment, is detailed to do what it takes to get the letters back - to guard Pumphrey in his meetings with blackmailers, or to steal them back if need be. There are lots of good things in this book, probably the last Sharpe novel Cornwell will write. Sharpe's low background is brought to the fore: he's a thief and a murderer, but it is precisely those skills gentlemen need to protect a gentleman's honor. Wellesley's erstwhile lover Caterina Blasquez is a memorable Sharpeian wench, and without giving too much away is a key factor in the book's ending where a Sharpe antagonist gets his in a non-violent but amusing way. This book portrays perhaps better than any of the others the deeply divided Spanish public - many wanting to make a separate peace with Napoleon in return for the restoration of the Spanish monarchy, but with many different reasons for doing so. Sharpe must operate in a Cadiz that's like a tinderbox, ready to go off against the English at any time. An English night-time amphibious attack on French artillery shelling Cadiz from across the bay is well done. And while nothing in the series can top Cornwell's account of Waterloo, the Battle of Bussaco is a fine climax to this book. English troops, unassisted by their Spanish allies, face annihilation when cornered by a vastly superior Fren

Again Sharpe entertains and educates with a well thought out plot and great descriptive narrative.Just another in a long line of Cornwell epics.

Bernard Cornwell is a superb historical novelist. In "Sharpe's Fury," the novel may be more satisfying if you read the "Historical Note" at the end of the book first. It is here that Cornwell describes his technique of taking the historical incident - the facts - and then outlines the embellishments he used to create the fictionalized story. The Battle of Barrosa Cornwell fictionalizes is really a historical footnote. But Cornwell's genius is his ability to make history come alive, whether it is early Saxon England or the 19th Century Peninsular War. Cornwell's vehicle is Richard Sharpe, a larger than life British thief turned soldier, the Duke of Wellington's ambassador brother who becomes involved with a Spanish courtesan, a stuffy British brigadier, a nasty French colonel, a murderous priest and many other characters. Cornwell weaves his history into the fiction. An imaginary affair between Henry Wellesley (Wellington's brother and ambassador to Spain) and a Spanish courtesan results in a blackmail plot using indisceet letters written by the ambassador. Sharpe is summoned, on the basis of his reputation for effective violence, to recover the letters. Cornwell builds a solid plot involving a murderous priest, an admiral hoping to restore the Spanish monarchy and the precarious relationship between Spain and England. There's a bit of invented or retold action here that depicts the nature of early 19th Century European war and, frankly, it is interesting. But the real action is the Battle of Barrosa. It was of moderate scale: about 10,000 French troops and perhaps 4,000 British troops - while several thousand incompetently led Spanish troops did nothing. Cornwell excels at describing the maneuvering of troops in the Napoleonic era, the ghastliness of battle, the incredible bravery of the troops and the victory acheived that day by the British, led by a particularly able general. This is definitely history "light" and Cornwell is to be commended for making history accessible to so many who otherwise might know nothing of the times he writes about. A great adventure novel as well as an engrossing history (as long as you know how to sort the history from the fiction). Jerry