SHARPE'S STORM - Book review

Bernard Cornwell’s twenty-fourth Sharpe novel, Sharpe’s Storm is actually the nineteenth in chronological order, taking place in 1813, following after Honour and Regiment (both 1813) and before Siege (1814). It isn’t a disappointment.

Sharpe and his battalion are with Wellington’s troops in Southern France, faced with crossing the river Nive to confront Marshal Soult’s formidable force. It’s winter and there seems to be perpetual rain, and it’s cold. Sharpe is tasked with escorting a couple of naval men on a secret reconnoitring mission: one of whom is Rear-Admiral Sir Joel Chase, a man he knew years ago (see Sharpe’s Trafalgar). Sir Joel’s enthusiasm soon becomes tiresome to Sharpe’ and to make matters worse he is also hindered by the buffoon Sir Nathaniel Peacock.

As well as Wellington, on good form as usual, we meet again Sharpe’s devoted Three Aitches: Harper, Harris, and Hagman.

All the ingredients we’ve come to expect are here: a couple of skirmishes, a fraught bloody battle, wife Jane, and a brief romantic interlude, laced with humour and pathos.

Sharpe is aware that the end of this war approached and if he survived it he doubted if his services would be retained. He would be at a loss if he didn’t soldier. Fighting, that’s what he was best at. And yet again he proves the truth of that.

As ever, the author’s historical note is enlightening, revealing the real characters and the author’s strategies to shoehorn his heroes into historical events.

A satisfying entry into the canon.

Editorial comment (for the benefit of writers):

‘Quiet!’ Sharpe hissed back (p27). This is not a word that can be hissed... A couple more inapt instances crop up...

‘... firing blindly though the smoke towards the far ridge’ (p126). Of course this should be ‘through’. It’s a common oversight made by editors.

‘Your men call you Mister Sharpe, not “sir”...’ (p150) This in essence repeats an observation made on p49 in the company of Sir Nathaniel Peacock.

GALLOWS THIEF - Book review

Bernard Cornwell’s 2001 historical novel Gallows Thief is yet another rip-roaring fast-paced enjoyable read.

Set in England a short while after Waterloo we find retired Captain of the 52^nd Regiment, Rider Sandman, in need of work for his late father left his family with massive debts. Another problem for Sandman is his proneness to quick temper: ‘His soldiers had known there was a devil in Captain Sandman... he was not a man to cross because he had the temper as sudden and as fierce as a summer storm of lightning and thunder’ (p54).

The Countess of Avebury, previously an opera dancer, was killed while having her portrait painted. The artist, Charles Corday, was accused and found guilty of the murder. However, his mother has the ear of the Queen and the Home Secretary, Viscount Sidmouth, is tasked with ascertaining without a doubt that the guilty verdict is sound. Sidmouth hires Sandman to investigate. Sandman was a man of principle and, after an interview with the condemned man, he came away not liking him but believed in his plea of innocence.

Sandman is an excellent cricketer, but he is reluctant to play as the game is spoiled by gambling and cheating. ‘He refused to share a carriage with men who had accepted bribes to lose a match’ (p27). The early – underarm bowling – history of cricket is one of many fascinating snippets Cornwell provides: with even a discussion on adopting overarm bowling (p270).

There are several characters – Sally Hood and her brother the highwayman Jack, Sergeant Sam Berrigan, Eleanor Forrest, Sandman’s ex-fiancée, and the Reverend Lord Alexander; the latter has been studying the flash language – for example the many words for a pickpockets, from cly-fakers to buzz-coves. Flash language for a gallows thief is someone who deprives the hangman of his victim (p195).

As Sandman is attempting to prevent a hanging, there is considerable detail about the capital punishment of the time, much in graphic imagery. Needless to say, many innocent individuals ended up on the gallows; however, the majority of those condemned had their sentences commuted to transportation to Australia.

A hero of Waterloo, Sandman recalls his time in Spain, notably when he was saved from French cavalry by a Greenjacket officer and his half-dozen riflemen – clearly, an allusion to Sharpe and his chosen men (p338).

Can Sandman obtain proof of Corday’s innocence before the fateful hour? It’s a race against time and powerful adversaries who prefer the artist to hang.

As ever, Cornwell has created a believable sordid benighted world of that period, complete with crisp dialogue, humour both dark and ribald, and with strong characters. Highly recommended.

Note:

Bernard Cornwell acknowledges a debt to Donald Rumbelow and his book The Triple Tree (1982). I met Mr Rumbelow, previously a London policeman, in the 1970s at Swanwick, where he gave a talk about his book The Complete Jack the Ripper. 

SHARPE'S COMMAND - Book review

Bernard Cornwell’s latest (2023) Sharpe adventure Sharpe’s Command places our hero at the battle of the Bridge at Almaraz, 1812 – as usual, based on historical events.

Major Sharpe is leading his Chosen Men, with sergeant Harper and the familiar other characters. They are behind enemy lines, intent on preventing the French from crossing the bridge to reinforce one of their forts which is soon to be under British siege.

Needless to say, he triumphs after a number of setbacks, this time aided by his wife Teresa and her guerrillas. Some of the impediments are due to betrayal by presumed allies, and others by the incompetence of British officers.

If you’ve watched any of the Sharpe TV films then you’ll be familiar with the characters and can even hear their voices as they speak from the page. If you haven’t, you’ll still enjoy an engaging and fascinating adventure sprinkled with knowledge about rifles, muskets and big guns! We meet again major Hogan who this time opines ‘A wise man once said that the best way to win a war is to do it without fighting’ (p210). He was doubtless quoting from Sun Tzu’s Strategy of War: ‘To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence.’

It would be unfair to go into details (spoilers) about the book. There’s historical fact, humour, bravery, and blood and gore. The usual ingredients for a fast-paced Sharpe read.

***

Like C S Forester with his hero Hornblower, Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels are not written in historical chronological order. Of his twenty-three Sharpe books, this is the fourteenth in chronological order, preceded by Sharpe’s Company and followed by Sharpe’s Sword. It’s not essential to read them in historical order, though it’s recommended as some main characters do die in the series (though it’s a good way to meet again some who later die, if that isn’t too confusing!)

SHARPE'S ASSASSIN - Book review

Sharpe’s Assassin is Bernard Cornwell’s twenty-second Sharpe novel (number 21 in his timeline/chronological sequence), his first Sharpe book in fourteen years. This tale follows immediately after Sharpe’s Waterloo (1990). Needless to say, we know Sharpe survives, since he appears in Sharpe's Devil (1992) which takes place some five years after Waterloo.

At Waterloo Sharpe lost a number of his chosen men and the story begins with our two heroes, Patrick Harper and Sharpe burying Daniel Hagman. He is summoned by the Duke of Wellington.

The Duke gives him the task of freeing some prisoners from the citadel at a nearby town called Ham. One prisoner in particular is important, an Englishman called Alan Fox. It’s considered a fool’s errand. But it is necessary. As the Duke says, ‘For this job we need a ruthless bastard.’ And that’s Sharpe.

While he’ll be away Sharpe’s battalion is handed over to a newly arrived Major Morris. This is not good news. Years ago Morris was responsible for Sharpe getting flogged for something he didn’t do. Now, however, Sharpe outranks Morris.

All Sharpe wants to do is retire to Normandy with Lucille, his common-law wife. After this last task, perhaps?

Yet the assault on the Ham citadel leads to the revelation that a cabal of Frenchmen have organised to wreak havoc on the occupying forces, with the intention of assassinating British high-ranking officers, in particular Wellington. Sharpe and Harper enter occupied Paris in search of this evil fraternity.

As with the earlier Sharpe books, the fiction is laced with historical events, lending added authenticity.

Throughout, the voices of the TV series’ actors resonates in the dialogue. There’s blood and gore aplenty, clever tactics to confound the enemy, lashings of humour at the expense of the French, honour and betrayal, and bold and foolhardy bravery.

Welcome back, Richard Sharpe! You’ve been away far too long.

Azincourt - Book review

Bernard Cornwell’s historical novel was published in 2008 and uses the French spelling for the famous battle as it avoids any confusion with the many non-fiction books on the same subject.

The book concerns Nicholas Hook, a young man of nineteen, a forester tasked with providing venison for the local lord by using his trusty longbow. While the book is ultimately about the conflict at Agincourt, it is also about family conflict. For two generations the Hook family had been feuding with the Perrills. An altercation with the Perrills makes Hook an outlaw, so he flees to France as part of the English contingent hired by the Duke of Burgundy. Stationed in the town of Soissons, he is comfortable – until the French attack. The town is betrayed and Hook has to fight for his life, using his skill with the bow to evade capture. While he is escaping, he saves the virtue and life of a nun about to be ravaged. The nun is called Melisande and stays with him. Before they get away they witness the outrageous slaughter of the English bowmen and others.

They make it back to England via Calais, but it is not long before Hook is recruited to join the troops of Henry V as he leads an invasion force against France. They land without incident and lay siege to Harfleur. But the siege seems to go on too long, and the English become debilitated by disease…

At considerable cost to men, Harfleur is taken. Against all advice, Henry V plans to move through France towards Calais, expecting, hoping for a battle.

And of course he gets one.

The sack of Soissons, the siege of Harfleur, the trek to Agincourt and that battle are all described in riveting detail, unsparingly gory.  There is no glory in war. War is hell, and it is depicted as such here. Yet there is humour, too:

Sir John ordered them to stick to their positions before the battle. Even if their bowels were loose. ‘You’re to shit where you stand. Shit and die! And go to hell with fouled breeches.’ A moment later, Sir John scowled at Hook. ‘Jesus, man, can’t you do that upwind of me?’ (p360)

Sir John is a larger-than-life character, as is the priest who travels with Hook, Father Christopher. Melisande is the bastard daughter of a French nobleman, which complicates matters for Hook. The Perrills are also in the fighting force and pose a serious threat, notwithstanding the thousands of French men-at-arms ahead of them.

Cornwell has the splendid knack of bringing alive the battle scenes while simultaneously ratcheting up concern for the main protagonists, for Melisande is among the camp-followers.

In addition, there are additional layers of superstition, unquestioning belief in God, who is according to Henry V on their side, and unbridled lust and hatred.

I’m just sorry it has taken me so long to get round to reading this superb novel.

There are appropriate maps, and a ‘Behind the Battle’ section which includes a historical note, a brief treatise on the longbow, and an interview with Cornwell.

Highly recommended.

Writing - serious about series

Fellow blogger and author Liz Harris recently posted her disenchantment with series books, prompted by Linwood Barclay’s novel Broken Promise (see her blog). She’s a fan of Barclay (I believe his writing style needs work, yet despite this he has the knack of drawing the reader in to keep turning the pages). But she was disappointed to find the book was the first in the Promise Falls series – some covers say this, some don’t, the latter being misleading, perhaps. Even so, Liz found the end of the book akin to ‘continued next book’ which can be deflating for a reader. Many readers, and Liz among them, want a resolution at the end of each novel. Yes, the series can present new challenges for the protagonists in later books, but some issue should be resolved in the current volume.

Series books by their nature are difficult to categorize for readers. For one thing, there are different kinds of series, all of them having their advocates.

Types of series

(not exhaustive)

1) Main character(s) engaged in solving crime/mystery/fighting common enemy. These are probably the most popular, because there is usually no continuity between books, yet they do supply the reader with familiar characters and environment. Police procedural and some historical books fall into this category. Ed McBain’s Precinct 87 and Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe, for example.

2) Main character(s) have intertwined stories to tell, which eventually define a resolution at the conclusion for all concerned. Nora Roberts is adept at these – quartets and trilogies, and even sometimes duets, relating to families (no pun intended).

3) Main character(s) in a dynasty/exotic location combat threats from outside, which can be warlike, business, personal or even supernatural. These can be interlinked sagas as penned by Barbara Taylor Bradford, A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, et al.

4) Main character roams the land and becomes involved in murder, mystery or mayhem. Each tale is stand-alone; the character rarely changes through experience. Lee Child’s Jack Reacher and E.C. Tubb’s Dumarest Saga, for example.

Why read/write a series anyway?

Regular characters in a series have been around in genre fiction for decades, which proves the popularity of the concept. TV and film franchises benefit from series productions, again emphasizing the attractiveness to the audience.

Readers feel comfortable meeting again familiar characters who encounter variations on a theme – murder, mystery, etc.

Writers build up a ‘bible’ for their characters, which includes their past, the current situation, and often where they’re going. The writer is familiar with the characters. I don’t believe it’s lazy writing, because you still have to present obstacles for the protagonist, and these difficulties must be overcome according to the character’s known traits.

Will the series end?

Depending on the type of series, it’s possible that some readers will not tackle the first book in the series until they know the last one is published or imminent.  This hasn’t prevented The Game of Thrones books amassing a vast readership (before the TV series, in fact), or Archer’s ‘Clifton Chronicles’. Fans of popular authors will buy in, regardless. It’s tough for relative unknown authors to gain this readership until they’ve amassed several books in a series.

A finite series I’ve recently read is Night Hunter by Robert Faulcon (six books published between 1983 and 1987; all reviewed in this blog). It’s a supernatural quest series, with a resolution published three years after the penultimate book.

Certainly, you’d think that before the author could ‘sell’ the series idea to a publisher, they’d have some appreciation of the conclusion.  J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books are in effect one novel in seven parts. I imagine the resolution was conceived at the outset, even if much of the glorious detail that runs throughout was not.

Of course, some series don’t need a final book, because they’re not a continuing saga but individual incidents in the main protagonist’s life (indeed, some characters don’t age though their authors do!) The character simply fades away – Charteris’ The Saint and Simon Brett’s Mrs Pargeter, to name two.

Series where the protagonist ages and evolves through his experiences are especially popular in crime fiction, because their back stories of family schisms affect the protagonist – Peter Robinson’s DCI Banks, for one; there are plenty of others.

I read all types of series and certainly don’t feel deprived if I haven’t reached ‘the end’. As in life, we enter other people’s lives, sometimes stay around, and at other times move away, not always consciously, but it happens. Art imitates life – so some stories will remain incomplete. I can live with that.

Having said as much, I do prefer to attain a resolution in the series books I write, though there always has to be an exception (see Floreskand below)!

The Avenging Cat series

Contemporary thrillers. Catherine Vibrissae has set herself the task of destroying the man who was responsible for her father’s death. To begin with, she sabotages his dubious business interests, but over time it seems to get more personal – on both sides. Each tale has a conclusion, though it promises more to come, for her vendetta is not complete.

#1 – Catalyst

#2 – Catacomb

#3 – Cataclysm

Work-in-progress - #4 – Cat’s Eye

The Tana Standish psychic spy series

Set in the 1970s/1980s, this features Tana Standish, a psychic British secret agent, who as a child survived the Warsaw ghetto of 1942.  Her credo is simple: fight evil. Unfortunately, she soon learns that the Soviets have a special secret unit in Kazakhstan that is employing psychics to spy on the West, and they have targeted her as well…

#1 – The Prague Papers (Czechoslovakia, 1975)

#2 – The Tehran Text (Iran, 1978/1979)

Work-in-progress - #3 – The Khyber Chronicle (Afghanistan, 1979/1980)

The Chronicles of Floreskand

‘by Morton Faulkner’

Co-written with Gordon Faulkner, the creator of mythical Floreskand, this series spans a fantasy continent that has been evolving for forty years. These stories have resolutions at the end, yet a great deal is left hovering for later books, with recurring characters and unintended consequences from earlier events.

#1 – Wings of the Overlord

#2 – To Be King

Work-in-progress - #3 – Madurava

Love them or loathe them, series books will be around for a long time yet. Long may that be so!

To play fair with the reader, however, publishers should make it clear that a book is part of a series.

Book Review - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Susanna Clarke’s debut novel was published in 2004 to wide acclaim (its gestation began in about 1993) but it is only now that I have taken it down from my bookshelf and read it! Admittedly, the 1006 pages of small print made it a little daunting. (I’m not averse to thick books – I read Lord of the Rings and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich over one period of time; another time, I read Gone With the Wind and War and Peace!)

What immediately struck me about this book was its style and wit. It begins in an alternative past, England in 1806. Apparently, there had been no practising magician (not someone using legerdemain, but employing real magic) for about 300 years. The conflict with Napoleon drags on and a certain Mr Norrell proposes to lend a magical hand to defeat Bonaparte, egged on by a Mr Robinson:

‘Mr Robinson was a polished sort of person. He was so clean and healthy and pleased about everything that he positively shone – which is only to be expected in a fairy or an angel, but is somewhat disconcerting in an attorney.’

Norrell is an unusual and not particularly likeable character, full of his own importance (in some cases, rightly so) and he does not suffer fools gladly. Yet until he performs a particularly remarkable act of magic – literally raising a woman from the dead – he is not taken seriously. Thereafter, he is feted – and fated – to defend the Realm time and again. To aid him, he takes on an apprentice, Jonathan Strange, who surprisingly proves very gifted in the magical arts. Strange seems the complete opposite of Norrell, handsome and popular and even daring.

However, after Strange goes alone to the Iberian Peninsula to offer his magical aid to Wellington, their friendship becomes strained. This section is particularly good, revealing historical research; I could almost expect Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe to enter the scene at any moment!

Writing in the style of a nineteenth century novel, where author intrusion is acceptable, Clarke excels, capturing the flavour of the period together with the descriptions – and over 200 footnotes – and the occasional old spelling used by Austen! This is emphasised by the Portia Rosenberg’s atmospheric broody illustrations.

‘From what she had been told she thought of Mr Norrell as a kind of miser who boarded magic instead of gold, and as our narrative progresses, I will allow the reader to judge the justice of this portrait of Mr Norrell’s character.’

Hovering like some doom-laden cloud, John Uskglass, the last great magician, seems to darken the mood, and justly so, since he was and is the Raven King.

There is a Dickensian feel too, particularly in the characters of the ‘Gentleman with thistledown-hair’, Vinculus, Drawlight, Childermass and Lascelles, all perfectly described.

 
‘His face was the colour of three-day-old milk; his hair was the colour of a coal-smoke-and-ashes London sky; and his clothes were the colour of the Thames at dirty Wapping.’

There are many instances of ghoulish and surreal imagery. ‘Their clothes and saddle-blankets were covered with cruel and deadly images… formed out of what appeared at first to be pearl buttons but which, on closer examination, proved to be the teeth of all the Frenchmen they had killed. Saornil [the guerrilla chieftain] in particular, had so many teeth attached to his person that he rattled whenever he moved, rather as if all the dead Frenchmen were still chattering with fear.’

Clarke’s description of an old woman surrounded by cats is most striking: ‘Her arms lay in her lap, so extravagantly spotted with brown that they were like two fish. Her skin was the white, almost transparent skin of the extremely old, as fine and wrinkled as a spider’s web, with veins of knotted blue… But perhaps she did not hear them. For, though the room was silent, the silence of half a hundred cats is a peculiar thing, like fifty individual silences all piled one on top of another… and she forgot everything in the world, except Cat – and that, it is said, she spoke marvellously well.’

The big puzzle is why Uskglass seemed to retire from the world for 300 years, and why magic went with him. Perhaps it will be answered in a subsequent tome. Dealing with powerful magicians is always problematical. Take Harry Potter, for example: why did they play Quidditch in the rain? Haven’t they heard of ‘sunny spells’? Weathermen refer to them all the time. Likewise, if a magician can move the landscape of Spain, as Strange amusingly does, surely nothing is beyond him? Yet Strange cannot easily locate Uskglass.

 
This is a dark tale with death and just a little redemption. The ending was satisfying in many respects, but left the story unfinished, the reader wanting a sequel – and yet a decade has passed since and it has not appeared yet, though it is still promised.

The imaginative alternative history, the colourful descriptions, the humour and wit, the characterisation, all make this an enjoyable and worthwhile fantasy read. If you love words, then you should find this novel a delight.

 
See also:
http://nik-writealot.blogspot.com.es/2015/05/critics-strange-dislike-of-magic-show.html

 

Independence

Happy 4th July to my 'cousins' and friends across the pond!

The shot heard round the world - plaque, Concord

Today being a Friday, I normally offer a review of a 'forgotten book'.  Instead, here is a selection of books that are about that period in history or reflect upon it...

  

 

And of course the excellent Bernard Cornwell who brings history and battles alive:

 

Or you can cast an eye upon a plethora of maps detailing major moments in the history of the U.S.