Sharpe's Devil: Richard Sharpe and the Emperor, 1820-1821

Hired by former lover Dona Louisa Blas Vivar to locate Vivar's missing husband, Richard Sharpe sets sail for South America, where they find the government of Chile in the corrupt hands of Bautista. 12,500 first printing. National ad/promo.

Fans of the 10 previous Sharpe novels will be delighted to have the up-from-the-ranks ex-colonel back. Five years after Waterloo ( Sharpe's Revenge ), Sharpe, living quietly en famille in Normandy, is asked by Dona Louisa Vivar to find her husband, last seen as a Spanish captain-general in rebellious Chile. En route to South America, Sharpe can't resist stopping at St. Helena to meet Napoleon, who charms Sharpe and his ex-sergeant, Patrick Harper, then asks them to carry a gift to an English settler in Chile. When they arrive, they are told Vivar is dead, and the corrupt man serving in his place accuses them of trying to pass a message from Napoleon to Chilean insurgents. Sharpe and Harper are shipped out on a Spanish frigate, which is captured by rebels led by the eponymous devil, Scottish Lord Cochrane, formerly of the Royal Navy, still the legendary scourge of the Spanish fleet. The ebullient, daring Cochrane sweeps Sharpe along in a series of breathtaking adventures on land and sea that ends with a smashing, against-the-odds rebel victory and the solution to Vivar's disappearance. Readers will be dazzled by the rollicking plot, period color and the atavistic thrill of terrific battle scenes right out of a Turner painting.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The hero of Cornwell's Sharpe series (Sharpe's Revenge, etc.) reluctantly abandons his Norman hearth and home to search for an old friend gone missing in revolutionary Chile. En route to the new world, there's a stopover on St. Helena and a visit to Sharpe's old adversary, the imprisoned Bonaparte. The Napoleonic wars are over. The Corsican monster is safely imprisoned in the South Atlantic; Sharpe's unloved wife is safely settled back in England; and Lieutenant-Colonel Sharpe himself has happily settled into the role of gentleman-farmer, tending to the fields of his aristocratic French mistress, watching his illegitimate children frolic. The bucolic bliss ends, however, with the arrival of Louisa, Countess of Mouromorto, who has come from Spain to beg the retired British rifleman to sail to South America to search for her husband, Sharpe's old friend and comrade-in-arms Don Blas Vivar. The incorruptible Don Blas had gone to Chile to defend the rotten Spanish colonial government against upstart republicans, but he has not been seen or heard from in months. Since Louisa will pay handsomely for his services and since the chateau is in desperate need of repairs, Sharpe reluctantly accepts the commission, hires on his favorite old sergeant, Patrick Harper, and sails round the Horn. His reception is chilly. The colonial general, who should be helping Sharpe, makes nothing but trouble, and Sharpe eventually finds himself becoming more and more sympathetic to the rebels who fight under a disgraced Scottish nobleman. Cornwell, one of the great naval writers of this era, finds a way to get his intrepid army hero to sea for much of the story- -without in the least compromising the high standards of this first-rate series. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In the 11th Richard Sharpe novel, our intrepid hero finds himself in the Spanish colony of Chile during its fight for independence in 1820-21. Hired by the wife of a Spanish nobleman to locate her kidnapped husband, the captain-general of Chile, Sharpe and friend Patrick Harper sail halfway around the world on a mission complicated by political intrigue and corruption. Series fans will find the usual strong characterization and action sequences, but some scenes, particularly the storming of the forts protecting the harbor of Valdivia, seem undeveloped and lacking in Cornwell's customary detail. Public libraries should purchase according to demand.
- Harold N. Boyer, Marple P.L., Broomall, Pa.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.