Sharpes Havoc Hb

Product Description

The latest book in the brilliant, bestselling Sharpe series brings Sharpe to Portugal, and reunites him with Harper.
It is 1809 and Lieutenant Sharpe, who belongs to a small British army that has a precarious foothold in Portugal, is sent to look for Kate Savage, the daughter of an English wine shipper. But before he can discover the missing girl, the French onslaught on Portugal begins and the city of Oporto falls.
Sharpe is stranded behind enemy lines, but he has Patrick Harper, he has his riflemen and he has the assistance of a young, idealistic Portuguese officer. Together, they have to find the missing girl and extricate themselves from the entanglements cast by Colonel Christopher, a mysterious Englishman who has his own ideas on how the French can be ejected from Portugal. Those ideas are as fantastic as they are dangerous, but the French are rampant, Lisbon is threatened and Christopher sees Sharpe and his riflemen as the only obstacles to his subtle scheme.
But there is a newly arrived British commander in Lisbon, Sir Arthur Wellesley, and just when Sharpe and his men seem doomed, Sir Arthur mounts his own counter-attack, an operation that will send the French army reeling back into the northern mountains. Sharpe becomes a hunter instead of the hunted and he will exercise a dreadful revenge on the men who double-crossed him.
Sharpe's Havoc is a classic Sharpe story, a return to Portugal in the company of Sergeant Patrick Harper, Captain Hogan and Sharpe's beloved Greenjackets, who can turn a battle as fast as Cornwell's readers can turn a page.

Review

The 19th novel in the bestselling Sharpe series is set in 1809. Sharpe and his squad of riflemen, with Sergeant Patrick Harper, is in Oporto on the River Douro in northern Portugal, trying to rescue a British mother and her 19-year-old daughter. The daughter, Kate, disappears, and Sharpe has to find her, but is cut off when the bridge is broken. They join forces with a fugitive group of Portuguese soldiers in order to fight their way back to the British lines, but something happens which cancels their orders. Then Sir Arthur Wellesley arrives to take command in the south, and Sharpe breathes again. It is a great story, brilliantly told, which will undoubtedly sell well this coming spring, and is always lively and entertaining.

From the Back Cover

'The Richard Sharpe novels are notable for their wonderfully astringent view of history. Sharpe is a man first and a patriot second: he is as likely to pick a fight with one of his own side as charge blindly towards the enemy.''Sunday Telegraph'
It is the spring of 1809 and a small British army is stationed in Lisbon when Marshal Soult begins the French invasion of northern Portugal. No one knows whether the British will fight or leave, but there is little choice for Lieutenant Richard Sharpe and his squad of riflemen who are sent into the beleaguered city of Oporto to rescue a British mother and daughter who have chosen to stay rather than flee southwards. But what seems like a straightforward mission becomes tangled in betrayal when Kate Savage disappears.
Sharpe, with Sergeant Patrick Harper and a score of riflemen, is cut off in the city when the bridge over the river Douro is broken. They join forces with a group of fugitive Portuguese soldiers and try to fight their way back to the British lines, but their orders are overridden by a mysterious English officer, who instructs them to remain in northern Portugal. Colonel Christopher excels in high diplomacy and low cunning, and his activities lead Sharpe and his riflemen into treacherous danger.
While the French are consolidating their hold on the north of the country, Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, arrives to take command in the south. He immediately mounts his own counter-attack in a brilliant campaign that will rout the French. Sharpe becomes the hunter instead of the hunted and seizes the chance to rescue the missing Kat