SHARPE’S ASSASSIN by Bernard Cornwell

This review originally appeared in the February 2022 edition of the Historical Novels Review.

Richard Sharpe’s journey has taken him from London’s gutter into the British infantry and a role in the empire’s most important battles from India to Waterloo. Having risen from the ranks to become a trusted Lieutenant-Colonel to the Duke of Wellington, Sharpe led a savage charge against France’s Imperial Guard in the Duke’s great victory over Napoleon. Now that the emperor has been defeated, Sharpe longs to live out his days with his wife and child on their Normandy farm. But the Duke calls on Sharpe one more time.

Paris is teeming with unrelenting zealots bent on revenge and assassination and the Duke knows it takes a rogue to best a rogue. Sharpe’s mission is to root out Napoleon’s most ardent supporters, and to find them, he and his loyal men must scour post-Waterloo Paris’s underbelly, through its foul coal smoke, sewage, and despair. Sharpe will have to bring all his cagey experience and fighting skills to bear to complete the Duke’s mission—and stay alive.

Readers know Richard Sharpe well from a series of 20-plus books, yet the scenes and dialogue are fresh and alive enough to propel his story forward. Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series, his Saxon Tales, and many other historical novels have earned him millions of readers. Though placed in historical settings, his protagonists are timeless men of action, canny and courageous fighters with principled natures. Cornwell’s battle scenes are drawn with immediacy that give them a very distinctive sense of momentum.