Sharpe's Honor

As France is slowly pushed north in Spain, France suddenly gets a lift from Napoleon's victories in northern Europe. Ducos, his spy chief in Spain, plots a coup that would restore the Spanish throne, ally Spain with France and evict Britain from the country. Instrumental to it is the lovely and treacherous Helene Leroux, now remarried to a Spanish marquess, who does not object to his demise as long as she'll get to keep her wealth. She doesn't realize it means the demise as well of Sharpe, whom she retains a soft spot for. Caught fighting an illegal duel with the marquess, Sharpe is jailed, his life in jeopardy, when his opponent is mysteriously murdered. Wellington is under pressure to hang Sharpe to appease the Spanish public. And La Marquesa, "the Golden Whore", is shut up in a convent. France has been retreating towards its own border with its wagons stuffed with Spanish plunder, but France's Marshal Jourdan sees his chance to finally vanquish Wellington, who has made so many French generals look bad. Wellington has only a desperate chance to turn the tables on Jourdan and keep the slow liberation of Spain alive. Ducos and his collaborators, a Spanish Inquisition priest and his vicious partisan brother, do everything they can to destroy Sharpe and the bewitching woman he can't forget. It all comes to a head at the battle of Vitoria, where the French are so confident of victory they set up a viewing stand for their ladies and mistresses, with their wagons full of gold and treasure parked nearby.

This is another entry on the Sharpe series. It is fun, entertaining and very readable. Cornwell's research is as excellent as usual. He takes some licenses for the shake of the story and continuity, but this is OK. Some people are outraged by the portrait of some of the real historical characters, but historical characters are rarely depicted accurately in historical fiction, so I think this can be forgiven. Besides, usually a more serious account of these characters is given at the end of the book on the Historical Note. Many people insist in compare this series with Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. I don't think this is fair for any of the series, they are different entities. What they have in common is that once you start you may get hooked and devour one book after another... And in the literary world today that is a rare and marvelous thing.

This is Cornwell at his finest. Sharpe, wrongfully acused of murder, sets off in search La Puta Durada in order to clear his name of her husband's murder secretly engineered by Major Ducos. Sharpe, the continual underdog, manages to save his skin once again! Cornwell's work only seems to get better with time and this book is proof of his talent!

This is the odd man out in the series (so far), which is a nice change. For much of the novel, Sharpe is out of the army, without Harper or Hogan, and on the run, trying to clear his name and win back his officer's commission.The scene where Sharpe rescues his lover, a onetime French spy, from a nunnery is the funniest writing in the series so far (eight books and counting). And when a fortuitous explosion frees him from the French, the description of Sharpe wandering away, drunken and dazed, from the burning castle is surreal.For anyone who thinks Sharpe is a one-dimensional hero character, Sharpe's Honor shows Sharpe's many weaknesses: his inability to sidestep a ruinous challenge to his honor; his blind obsession with a woman who is at best, fickle, at worst, treacherous; his destructive self-pity.This novel concentrates on the interior worlds of Sharpe and other characters more than earlier books have. It's illuminating to see the battle of Vittoria from so many viewpoints. And Cornwell continues to show that truth is stranger than fiction by taking incidents that really happened, such as the bizarre looting of the French baggage train, and weaving them into the story.Sharpe's Honor is another strong entry in the series.

Sharpe, wrongfully acused of murder, sets off in search La Puta Durada in order to clear his name of her husband's murder secretly engineered by Major Ducos. Sharpe, the continual underdog, manages to save his skin once again! Cornwell's work only seems to get better with time and this book is proof of his talent!