by Bernard Cornwell, Rated B+I have been thinking about trying this series for a while and since Melinda mentioned that she had been reading them and obviously enjoying them I thought I'd give them a try.
Trying to find out where this series starts has been something of a challenge as it turns out that Cornell didn't write them in order. I thought I was pretty slick and found a prequel that he had written to the Sharpe's Rifles series but it seems that this is not really the beginning of the beginning of the Sharpe books. Sharpe's Tiger is really the beginning of the beginning and is set in India before Sharpe becomes an officer. Shaun is picking it up from the library for me today.
This "prequel" that I just read is the beginning of Sharpe's adventures in the Peninsula Wars against Napoleon and is set in January 1809 and has the new Lieutenant Sharpe trying to get his small English band away from the victorious French. Sharpe hopes to join the British outpost in Lisbon but is waylaid by a Spanish major of cavalry into helping him pull off a "miracle." The noble Major Vicar means to raise the flag of Spain's patron saint over Santiago de Compositely, now in French hands, as a sign that Spain will not be defeated. The battle scenes are thrilling and realistic and I learned something - a macho is a mule whose vocal chords have been cut so that it can't bray and warn the enemy. The subplots revolve around Sharpe's making the recalcitrant Harper a sergeant, winning the respect of his troops.
It was good enough that I intend to make it a 2007 project to track down and read the rest of the series, where ever and in whatever year they may be set and regardless of when they were written.
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