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4.0 out of 5 stars
A Hard Look at Ruthless Decisions, Feb 9 2009
Following on the heels of Sharpe's Eagle, Sharpe's Gold (the 9th novel in chronological order of events) plays on the darker side of "doing one's duty" of winning at any cost. During the early part of the Peninsula Wars, the Spanish army ceased to exist and a payroll for the nonexistent army is left in limbo. After a scout learns that the partisans have the gold, Sir Arthur Wellesley decides that the money must be liberated to help save the British army from defeat in Portugal.
After an awkward interchange where Captain Richard Sharpe (promoted from Lieutenant in Sharpe's Eagle) interferes with a provost who wants to hang one of his men as a looter, Wellesley tells Sharpe that he "must" get the gold. An earlier foray with cavalry failed, but there is a British officer watching the gold along with the partisans (guerillas). All Sharpe has to do is lead his few infantrymen behind enemy lines, persuade the partisans (led by the dangerous and suspicious El Catalico) to give him the Spanish gold, and then carry it back through enemy lines again.
Naturally, the challenge is even more difficult than expected. The scout who accompanies him is immediately captured by the French and Sharpe decides to rescue him. After that, the Spanish partisans claim the French have the gold and that the British officer has been captured. In the ensuing battle, Sharpe saves and becomes entranced by a most remarkable young woman, one who fights better than most men and is also very beautiful.
In the story, Bernard Cornwell brilliantly uses a real historical incident to present Sharpe with one of those "someone will die no matter what I do" choices that often occur in war. If you read this book with a friend, you can have some fun debating what Sharpe might have done differently.
The story is way too dark to be totally satisfying to Sharpe fans. Otherwise, it's brilliantly done. But it pales compared to the remarkable Sharpe's Eagle that preceded it.
Enjoy!
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A great story, Sep 4 2003
Out of all the Sharpe books I would say this isn't one of the best, it's got all the usual Sharpe features but it just lacks that certain something. Still though, it's an awesome book and well worth a read.In this book Sharpe makes enemies with a powerful guerilla leader, El Catalico. El Catalico is a master swordsman and Sharpe is no match for him with a sword, and in the inevitable battle between these foes, Sharpe must rely upon his means of fighting. The book is set during August 1810, you get some good education about what happened during that time Anglo-French war. Almeida, a huge fortress under British control is destroyed, you get a very detailed and highly visual description of the explosion that destroyed the fort in the book. The rest is in the book, but the story is great and well, typical Sharpe. 4 Stars
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A Solid Entry, but Where Are the Repercussions?, Jun 27 2001
In this installment in Cornwell's Napoleonic War series, Sharpe and his riflemen are sent by Lord Wellington on a secret mission to recover a huge cache of Spanish gold deep in French held territory. At this point in the war (August 1810), the British have been driven from Spain, and French armies are marching on Portugal. Meanwhile, the army has run out of money and without the gold, the British will have to abandon Lisbon, and the war. Sharpe's mission introduces him (and the reader) to the uneasy diplomacy between England and Spain, as for the first time, Shape encounters Spanish partisans fighting the French. The partisans currently have the gold, and are loathe to relinquish it to the English troops, whom they don't trust. In each book in the series there is a main villain, here it is the partisan leader, a cruel warlord called "El Catholico." And, in each book in the series there is a beautiful woman, here Teressa, who will play an important and long running role in the series. True to form, she falls into his bed a little too readily, but that's par for the course in the series.SPOILER WARNING << Read no Further: Plot Twists to Be Revealed! >> As usual, even once Sharpe successfully extricates the gold and his company from the partisans, and then French forces, he still must battle his greatest foe: army bureaucracy. Holed up in the fortress of Almeida, he is ordered by the garrison commander to relinquish the gold to Spanish representatives. Unwilling to let that happen, he comes up with a rather drastic way to avoid the command--blow up the garrison, thus dissolving the commander's authority! Cornwell bases this on the real explosion of the magazine that destroyed Almeida, but it seems a rather extreme solution, even for the ruthless Sharpe. Pursing his "break a few eggs to make an omlette" plan, Sharpe's explosion ends up killing around 500 British soldiers--rank and file soldiers just like him. He grapples with his remorse momentarily, but it's a monumentally guilt-inducing event that seems not to have caused Sharpe many sleepless nights later in the series (at least the ones I've read so far). Considering Cornwell's has Sharpe's repeatedly recall his whipping in India, and other traumatic events from his past, it seems a slight misstep that the climax of this book doesn't affect him in later ones (although perhaps in working my way through the rest of the series, I'll find myself wrong). In any event, it's a fairly solid entry in the series.
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by Bernard Cornwell
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