Bernard Cornwell's novels featuring the adventures of Captain Richard Sharpe of the British Army in the wars against Napoleon have been bestsellers in England and have won praise for their vivid battle descriptions, fast-paced action, colorful characters, and authentic military detail. They have also been dramatized for television by Masterpiece Theatre. The series stars Sean Bean and will be aired initially in America during May 1995.
This eagerly awaited new novel in the Sharpe series takes Richard Sharpe and his company back to the spring of 1811 and one of the bitterest battles of the Peninsular War, a battle on which all British hopes of victory in Spain will depend.
Sharpe is given responsibility for an Irish battalion of the king of Spain's household guard, ceremonial troops who are poorly equipped and untrained for battle. While quartered in the crumbling fort of San Isidro, they are attacked by the Loup Brigade, an elite French unit commanded by the formidable Brigadier General Guy Loup. Sharpe has already clashed once with Loup, and the Frenchman has sworn that he will have his revenge.
Sharpe finds himself used as a pawn in a game of political expediency, and after Loup's attack he is faced with the ruin of his career and reputation.
With thousands of French troops massing at a tiny village nearby, Sharpe's only hope is to redeem himself on the battlefield. To save his honor he must lead his men to glory on the blood-glutted streets of Fuentes de Onoro and settle his private war with General Loup.