A colorful read that had me precisely in the moment, breathless and wanting more!
Sharpe's Assassin (Sharpe #22) by Bernard Cornwell
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m a huge Richard Sharpe fan. Helped along by first meeting Sharpe as a tv program years ago. The rifleman from the dregs of society who took the kings shilling and went off “over the hills and far away” to fight Napoleon from one end of the European peninsula to the other, “ ‘From Portugal to the heart of France,” and now onto Paris. It’s 1815 and post Waterloo.
Sharpe has been tasked as he so laconically puts it, to “ ‘Get first into France, capture a fortress, release some prisoners, and then rejoin the army.’ “ And that’s just the beginning of Sharpe’s current enterprise.
Cornwell is just so descriptive! I was in the thick of battles, I came into Paris, held my anger in and honed it, as I channeled Richard Sharpe. And the old friends well met…even the memories evoked.
Sharpe is tasked to hunt down an organization La Fraternité bent on assassinating Wellington, under the cover of restoring stolen paintings housed in the Louvre. (read Cornwell’s historical notes for more info.)
If like me you love Cornwell’s writing and you’re attracted by the underdog who wins through, the irreverent scamp with a solid sense of integrity, who can cut through to the chase with no holds barred, then Richard Sharpe, a ‘forlorn hope’ survivor is your man. So many memories tied up in this novel.
The gems of historical information Cornwell drops enlighten. Like Sharpe insisting men pay the conquered populace properly for supplies and not with worthless metal buttons hammered down to look like “genuine coinage.”
Historical writing that truly engages!
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