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books_with_benghis_kahn 's review for:
Sharpe's Havoc
by Bernard Cornwell
Yet another superbly engaging Sharpe book! Cornwell was on a tremendous roll with these in the early 2000s, and it was easy to see how much he had improved as a writer from Sharpe's Rifles which he wrote 15 years before this one. Sharpe here was his usual witty, hard-edged self, but at a really interesting point in his development where he's really coming into his own as an officer and leader of his band of Rifles as they try to survive amidst the French invasion of Portugal.
We have a classic Cornwell villain who managed to really differentiate himself from the previous ones though with his veneer of respectability, and Cornwell added in a lively Portugese intellectual into the mix as a fun foil for Sharpe. The plotting felt unique compared to the previous books because Sharpe and the regiment are cut off behind enemy lines, so there's no clear goal for the middle of the book except survive, and the battles when they come are visceral and tense as always. Cornwell is great at laying out the geography of a fight along with the numbers and capabilities, so the battles are easy to follow from a strategy/tactics perspective as well as how they develop.
Some of the dialogue in this one from the fake "Colonel" Christopher, Marshal Soult, and the British commanders was just delightful good fun, too (which Rupert Farley performed with all the personality and vigor you could ask for). There was also some pretty grimdark stuff throughout the book, as Cornwell didn't flinch away from the wartime atrocities (mostly) committed by the French as they ransacked their way through Portugal--some of the moments were tough to take and emotionally very poignant. All in all, I couldn't put it down!
We have a classic Cornwell villain who managed to really differentiate himself from the previous ones though with his veneer of respectability, and Cornwell added in a lively Portugese intellectual into the mix as a fun foil for Sharpe. The plotting felt unique compared to the previous books because Sharpe and the regiment are cut off behind enemy lines, so there's no clear goal for the middle of the book except survive, and the battles when they come are visceral and tense as always. Cornwell is great at laying out the geography of a fight along with the numbers and capabilities, so the battles are easy to follow from a strategy/tactics perspective as well as how they develop.
Some of the dialogue in this one from the fake "Colonel" Christopher, Marshal Soult, and the British commanders was just delightful good fun, too (which Rupert Farley performed with all the personality and vigor you could ask for). There was also some pretty grimdark stuff throughout the book, as Cornwell didn't flinch away from the wartime atrocities (mostly) committed by the French as they ransacked their way through Portugal--some of the moments were tough to take and emotionally very poignant. All in all, I couldn't put it down!