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53 reviews for:
Sharpe's Assassin: Richard Sharpe and the Occupation of Paris, 1815
Bernard Cornwell
4.13 AVERAGE
53 reviews for:
Sharpe's Assassin: Richard Sharpe and the Occupation of Paris, 1815
Bernard Cornwell
4.13 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
For thoughts on the series, see "Sharpe's Eagle."
Spoilers ahead.
The order is wrong on this list. This isn't the last one chronologically, it should go before Sharpe's Devil. This book is immediately after Sharpe's Waterloo when Napoleon loses Waterloo and the Allies advance on Paris. The Allies eventually take Paris but Sharpe is sent on ahead on special service.
There are several special services, which he performs, first with the Light Company and later on with the entire South Essex battalion. First he goes to the town of Ham to rescue a Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox is a low key spy with two tasks. One (historically correct) is that he has to go to the Louvre (Musee Napoleon) to take inventory of all the looted artworks and then send them back to their rightful owners. And two is to find and eliminate the Fraternité, a group of die-hard Bonapartists whose aim is to assassinate Wellington and the French King Louis amongst others.
The writing flows easily and is easy to read, that's vintage Cornwall. There are many aspects to the Sharpe novels. One is that most of them are based on historical events and often Cornwell does a great job giving us a boots on the ground Sharpe perspective of them together with a bit of his own viewpoint (disguised as that of a character's.)
Cornwell as a writer has gotten better and better. His later novels often include humor, sometimes poetry and other elements missing from his earlier novels.
I feel sad that this is the last Sharpe novel and I hope he will continue and add more to the series.
The order is wrong on this list. This isn't the last one chronologically, it should go before Sharpe's Devil. This book is immediately after Sharpe's Waterloo when Napoleon loses Waterloo and the Allies advance on Paris. The Allies eventually take Paris but Sharpe is sent on ahead on special service.
There are several special services, which he performs, first with the Light Company and later on with the entire South Essex battalion. First he goes to the town of Ham to rescue a Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox is a low key spy with two tasks. One (historically correct) is that he has to go to the Louvre (Musee Napoleon) to take inventory of all the looted artworks and then send them back to their rightful owners. And two is to find and eliminate the Fraternité, a group of die-hard Bonapartists whose aim is to assassinate Wellington and the French King Louis amongst others.
The writing flows easily and is easy to read, that's vintage Cornwall. There are many aspects to the Sharpe novels. One is that most of them are based on historical events and often Cornwell does a great job giving us a boots on the ground Sharpe perspective of them together with a bit of his own viewpoint (disguised as that of a character's.)
Cornwell as a writer has gotten better and better. His later novels often include humor, sometimes poetry and other elements missing from his earlier novels.
I feel sad that this is the last Sharpe novel and I hope he will continue and add more to the series.
Thoroughly enjoyed this, loved the series and this has made me want to start them allover again
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
So I'll preface this by saying that Bernard Cornwell is my favorite writer of historical fiction and probably my favorite writer ever. I've read all 20+ of the Sharpe novels, rated them all 5 stars, and watched the television series twice. Colleen McCullough gives him a run for his money with the Rome series, but between the Sharpe and Uhtred books, I've read more of Cornwell than I've read any other author. So believe me, I'm a HUGE Sharpe fan, and I was giddy with delight when I saw this book was being published. My actual reading experience left me conflicted though. I really enjoyed it, but it also felt bit more like a fully fledged outline of a book rather than a finished product. It went fast, Sharpe himself was terse to the point of being a caricature, and it felt very formulaic - none of which truly threw me off because as a lifelong fan, I could fill in all the blanks myself mentally and I love the Sharpe formula. So I enjoyed this book even if I felt that overall it didn't have quite the magic of the old ones. In fact I really, really, really enjoyed my trip down memory lane in this book, but I felt if new readers start with this book they're not really going to get much of a picture of Sharpe. So if you haven't read the other books, don't start here. Start at the beginning and work your way forward. If you've read all the others then go ahead and read this one - it's not as good as the others, but it's a sheer delight to get to spend any time with Sharpe at all after a decade of thinking there would never be another Sharpe book.
An unexpected and welcome delight to find Cornwell had returned to the story of Richard Sharpe last year, 14 years since the previous novel, and it does not disappoint. Picking up directly after Sharpe's Waterloo and effortlessly slipping back into the familiar style and characters, and leaving our hero with the ending he fully deserves after the years of battle we have followed him through.
Well, that’s it: my last Sharpe novel. It’s taken me around six years, but now I’ve read ‘em all. I’ve enjoyed ‘em to varying degrees. This is one of the better ones.
Here’s the setup: the British have just won the field at Waterloo, and Sharpe & Harper think they’re finally done fighting. But Wellington has a few more tasks …
This novel, written years since the last and shoehorned into a tiny gap in the characters’ timeline, touches all the bases avid Sharpe/Harper fans have come to expect: excellent plotting, memorable characters, and enough historical detail to ground the story and educate the reader without bogging things down. I enjoyed it. Should author Bernard Cornwall choose to write another book in this series, I’ll be here for it.
Here’s the setup: the British have just won the field at Waterloo, and Sharpe & Harper think they’re finally done fighting. But Wellington has a few more tasks …
This novel, written years since the last and shoehorned into a tiny gap in the characters’ timeline, touches all the bases avid Sharpe/Harper fans have come to expect: excellent plotting, memorable characters, and enough historical detail to ground the story and educate the reader without bogging things down. I enjoyed it. Should author Bernard Cornwall choose to write another book in this series, I’ll be here for it.