Sharpe's Prey: Richard Sharpe and the Expedition to Denmark, 1807
4.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
"The greatest writer of historical adventures today."
—Washington Post
Critically acclaimed, perennial New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell (Agincourt, The Fort, the Saxon Tales) makes real history come alive in his breathtaking historical fiction. Praised as "the direct heir to Patrick O'Brian" (Agincourt, The Fort), Cornwell has brilliantly captured the fury, chaos, and excitement of battle as few writers have ever done—perhaps most vividly in his phenomenally popular novels following the illustrious military career of British Army officer Richard Sharpe during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In Sharpe's Prey, Sharpe must prove his mettle once again after performing courageously on Wellesley's battlefields in India and the Iberian Peninsula, as he undertakes a secret mission to Copenhagen, Denmark in 1807 to prevent a resurgent Napoleon from capturing the Danish fleet. Perhaps the San Francisco Chronicle said it best: "If only all history lessons could be as vibrant."
Bernard Cornwell
BERNARD CORNWELL is the author of over fifty novels, including the acclaimed New York Times bestselling Saxon Tales, which serve as the basis for the hit Netflix series The Last Kingdom. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod and in Charleston, South Carolina.
Read more from Bernard Cornwell
Fools and Mortals: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Sharpe's Prey
Titles in the series (6)
Sharpe's Tiger: The Siege of Seringapatam, 1799 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Triumph: Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharpe's Fortress: Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharpe's Trafalgar: Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharpe's Battle: The Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, May 1811 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Assassin: Richard Sharpe and the Occupation of Paris, 1815 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related ebooks
War of the Wolf: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pale Horseman: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharpe's Battle: The Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, May 1811 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Triumph: Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Assaye, September 1803 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharpe's Trafalgar: Richard Sharpe and the Battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharpe's Fortress: Richard Sharpe and the Siege of Gawilghur, December 1803 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sharpe's Tiger: The Siege of Seringapatam, 1799 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sharpe's Assassin: Richard Sharpe and the Occupation of Paris, 1815 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On The Road With Wellington: The Diary of a War Commissary in the Peninsular Campaigns Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Waterloo: The History of Four Days, Three Armies, and Three Battles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wildtrack: A Novel of Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fools and Mortals: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crécy: The Age of the Archer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scoundrel: A Novel of Suspense Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mutiny: A Kydd Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pacific Glory: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Seaflower: A Kydd Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Artemis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Winter King: A Novel of Arthur Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dieppe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man of Honour Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Breakout Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ravenspur Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flashman and the Seawolf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warriors of the Storm: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holy Warrior: A Novel of Robin Hood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sword of Kings: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warlord: A Novel of Robin Hood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Historical Fiction For You
The Grapes of Wrath Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sold on a Monday: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Light Between Oceans: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5East of Eden (Original Classic Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Tender Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Eve Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellow Wife: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Red Tent - 20th Anniversary Edition: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Einstein: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That Bonesetter Woman: the new feelgood novel from the author of The Smallest Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Second Life of Mirielle West: A Haunting Historical Novel Perfect for Book Clubs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Kitchen House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Clockmaker's Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tinkers: 10th Anniversary Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Sisters Brothers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book Woman's Daughter: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House Is on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Magic Lessons: The Prequel to Practical Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Girls in the Stilt House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Island of Sea Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hang the Moon: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Sharpe's Prey
26 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We last saw Sharpe improbably serving as an honorary marine on board a fictional substitute for the ship that came to Admiral Nelson's rescue at a crucial stage of the sea battle at Trafalgar, a hilariously contrived plot in which to find our infantry bastard-hero but still jolly good fun. Sharpe's India adventures thus came to a rollicking closure, and Europe beckons....
As Sharpe's Prey opens, though, Europe, or at least England, has not exactly welcomed our man with open arms -- even though he came home from India a wealthy man (booty and jewels a-plenty!) and an officer to boot. If only that had been all. If only. But alas, the soap opera/shipboard romance/adultery plot that rounded out Sharpe's Trafalgar had its consequences. The upper class hasn't stayed upper by being kind to upstarts like Sharpe, after all. So it is a penniless, cranky, hopeless Sharpe whom we find wandering the streets of London, not even soldiering really as the Rifles regiment to which he was sent has the same prejudice against officers promoted from the ranks as everybody else, and they've made a quartermaster of him. We're off to battle; clean up the barracks, there's a good fellow.
Thank goodness some other good folk returned to England ahead of him, who think well of him as a man of action and effectiveness. Such is Colonel (now General) Baird, whose bacon Sharpe saved in Sharpe's Tiger (at the Siege of Seringapatam), and who, it turns out, has been looking for him for a while, for a special mission in which Sharpe shall become a secret agent!
Well, hey, honorary marine, secret agent, not that far of a leap, eh wot?
Soon Sharpe is heading off to glamorous, sunny, uh, Denmark, in the company of a mysterious half-Danish captain, on a mission to prevent the Danes from letting Napoleon have their navy to replace what he lost at Trafalgar. Pretty straightforward, right? Oh, except this captain is a complete bastard in the evil Major Dodd mode. Um. If a man is definied by the quality of his enemies, well, Sharpe is a most fascinating fellow, isn't he? And one who is never more dangerous than when he is completely screwed.
But so most of the action in this book takes place during Britain's 1807 attack on Denmark, which included a land skirmish the Danes remember as the "battle of the wooden shoes" (because so many of those fighting for the Danes were farmer/militiamen who wore those famous Danish clogs to battle) and several days of intense bombardment of the city of Copenhagen. Which is to say everything takes a bit of a darker tone, as a question that looms through the first two-thirds of the novel is whether Britain actually will bomb the city, which is full of women and children.
I don't recall Sharpe or anyone else worrying so much about civilian bystanders in India.
The bombing campaign itself -- shells and mortar rounds fired from huge wallowing British "bomb ships" in Copenhagen's outer harbor -- is described in harrowing detail, enough so to where it might make some readers queasy (as might depictions of how a spymaster gets interrogated by French agents. Pliers and teeth are involved. Ack). There are no strategic maneuvers to trace out on a map here; it's just brute force and siege warfare. It ain't pretty, but that's the way it was, and is. As Sharpe observes to himself as he sails away from the scene of his latest strange adventures, it's a soldier's world, and Sharpe is a soldier, and while he had plenty on his conscience before his Scandinavian tour, he's learned there was plenty more where that came from, and more still to come, for soon he'll be off to the Peninsula (as in Spain and Portugal) and even more war!
Lord, I do love Sharpe. Reading about him that is. I don't think I'd want to meet him in person. No. No, that wouldn't be very nice at all. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Always fun, you can always cound of Sharpe and Cornwall for a ripping good yarn.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A good read but it seemed too easily resolved.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Another enjoyable Sharpe historical fiction. The history of the campaign against the Danes at Copenhagen is (presumably) accurate. Like the entire Sharpe series the history of the British forces from India through Trafalger to the Napoleanic battles would be mostly unknown to American readers except for Cornwall's Sharpe series.Cornwall follows his usual Sharpe formula: lots of violent action, intrigue, Sharpe's attractive influence on a woman, the portrayal of haughty superiors, the practicality of down-to-earth common soldiers and sailors. Not high literature, but fun to read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A better quality Sharpe. The follow-up to Nelson's attack on the Danes is obscure enough for our working class hero to have a wonderful time.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5About the British bombardment of Copenhagen in the year 1807. The Danish fleet was desired by both the French and ourselves and it was hoped that the Danes would hand it over to the British without the need of force. This was not to be and British forces devastated the city and killed many of the inhabitants. Not one of our best moments I feel.Bernard Cornwell has once again combined fact and fiction to make another exciting adventure for his hero Richard Sharpe.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ah, Sharpie. Our hero is grieving the loss of his love Lady Grace, their child, all his money and the fact that his new rank means that he's despised as an upstart. To get over his troubles, he engages in a bit of vengeful murder and theft, some daring espionage/spy work, and the romancing of a charming Danish widow, whose disapproving father happens to be a British agent in denial about his own peril. This occurs during the regretable siege and fire bombing of Copenhagen by the British in 1807. If I hadn't visited Copenhagen last year I might have believed that Cornwell had exaggerated the level of destruction. It is today a beautiful city and though the rest of the world may have forgotten this shameful assault the Danes are still talking about it. Cornwell did his research. Clouter makes an appearance, though missing a few fingers, and we briefly meet the future Sgt. Harper stealing a chicken. Although Sharpe doesn't save the city, or in the long run the lady, he manages to replenish his pockets and impresses enough of the right people that his career is certainly about to take off.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is the fifth (chronologically...they were published in a different order) in Cornwell's series about Richard Sharpe, a soldier in the British infantry during the Napoleonic Wars. As the subtitle says, this episode occurs during the British invasion of Copenhagen in 1807, a seldom-remembered event. Denmark possesses the second most powerful navy in existence after Trafalgar destroyed the French fleet. The Danes are neutral in the wars and have taken their fleet and moored it up in Copenhagen's harbor, refusing to allow either side to use it.As our story opens, the French have just concluded the Treaty of Tilsit with Russia, one whose provisions states that the Russians will turn a blind eye toward a French move to seize the Danish fleet. The British cannot afford to allow this and demand that Denmark moor the fleet in England for safe-keeping. The Danes refuse. In response, the British attack Copenhagen, shelling—tactics that presage the horrors of warfare a century later—the civilian population of the city with thousands of explosive and incendiary rounds in order to break the Danish will and force them to yield the ships.Richard Sharpe is sent into this volatile situation in advance on a mission as a bodyguard for Captain Lavisser, who has orders to follow up on intelligence that the Danish Crown Prince is amenable to a bribe. Of course, the reader is aware from an opening scene that this intelligence was faked by Lavisser himself who is a French agent and intends to abscond with the £43,000 in gold while opening the city to the French. What follows is an exciting ride through intrigues, betrayals and battles. This book packs a bit more punch than the previous, where Sharpe's actions were somewhat constrained by being at sea.The overall tone of the book is not as up-beat as some of the earlier stories. When Sharpe enters the book, we learn immediately that Grace died in childbirth and Sharpe is left rudderless: he cannot deal with her absence; he had spent his fortune on property for the family they were starting, only to lose it to her family's lawyers afterwards; he does not fit in as an officer because of his background and sees no future in the Army. The subplot of this story is Sharpe coming to terms with all of this, emerging at the end still sad, but able to let Grace go and throw himself back into life an infanty officer. In addition to Sharpe's personal troubles, new layers (darker layers) are added to his personality as he watches, appalled, the slaughter of the helpless Danes, full of contempt for those who make strategic policy.A good read.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Didn't care for this one nearly as much as its predecessors. I sympathized too much with the defenseless residents of Copenhagen, I suppose. Still, it was interesting learning about this little known episode.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love the Sharpe series of books as much as I loved the TV series!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lt. Sharpe lost a lot of my respect in the previous book (Sharpe's Trafalgar), but he regained a lot of it--perhaps all of it and even more!--in this book.It starts off with Sharpe, mourning Grace's death, wanting out of the army. The only thing preventing him from doing so is the fact that he is unable to sell his commission. Since he was given his commission and had not bought it, as a 'proper' officer would have, he could not sell it back. The poor guy is utterly broke, due to legal issues with Grace's family after her death.He finds his way back to the foundling home where he grew up, and he meets up with the Master. It gets ugly, of course, but Sharpe is protecting a little girl. He does have a soft spot in him, it seems. A likeable character, all in all, even though he can be a brute. But he knows he's a brute, and so does the author, so it's all good.The story goes along and Sharpe finds himself in Denmark.This was a really interesting bit... Cornwell showed England as the aggressors in this battle. Denmark was utterly neutral, but because it had a good fleet that France was eyeing, England wanted control of the Danish fleet before France got it. Denmark, being neutral, refused time and again... so the fleet had to be taken from it by force.Sharpe was in Copenhagen when all this stuff happened, and he was torn between doing a duty that needed done and seeing the Danish people dying when they shouldn't have been. Good conflict, there. It gave Sharpe some extra layers in his character, too.And... the Rifles make a cameo, including Patrick Harper! *squee* The next book, which I have already read but will probably read again, is Sharpe's Rifles, and it shows us Sharpe's inclusion into that group.Good stuff. I was happy with this one. ^_^
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5#5 in the Richard Sharpe series.It's 1807, and Sharpe is broke and bitter. After returning to England after the Batle of Trafalgar, he and Lady Grace Hale began living together. But the class difference between them led to social disapproval and shunning. When Lady Grace died in childbirth, leaving Sharpe stricken with grief, the family's lawyers descended like a pack of vultures and stripped Sharpe of all his property, leaving him destitute into the bargain. In addition, he still has not integrated well into the Rifles; the company captain relegates Sharpe to the menial and boring task of quartermaster.Desperate, feeling that his fortunes can go no lower, Sharpe plans and carries out a daring robbery of a man he hates more than anyone else in the world--the head of the orphanage in which Sharpe grew up. Sharpe intends to take the money and desert from the army. Hiding in a tavern to escape pursuit, Sharpe suddenly is accosted by Major General Sir David Baird, a Scotsman whose life he saved during the storming of the fortress of Seringapatam in India. Baird has been searching for Sharpe, since Sharpe is exactly the person that Baird thinks can handle an unusual and dangerous assignment: escorting Foot Gruads' Captain Lavisser to Copenhagen, Denmark on a mission to prevent the French from capturing Denmark's navy--by means of a bribe.The errand seems simple, but Sharpe does not reckon on treachery. Trapped in Copenhagen and a hunted man, he enters a series of adventures that ends with the brutal bombardment of Copenhagen's civilian population by the British, possibly the first instance of deliberate warfare on a civilian population to achieve military ends. In this installment is the first appearance of Lord Pumphrey, and effeminate-seeming but subtle and powerful member of the Foreign Office. Those who have read the Aubrey-Maturin series will remember Sir Joseph Blaine, Stephen Maturin's contact and a decent person. However, Blaine refers to other types in the Foreign Office, and Pumphreys is definitely one of the "others"--ruthless and remorseless behind a smiling and foppish exterior.The bombardment of Copenhagen is described in detail and leaves nothing to the imagination in terms of the suffering of the civilian population.As usual, Cornwell has done his research and history comes alive in another very well-written book in this excellent series. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Though not the best in the Sharpe series, Sharpe’s Prey is solid with action and adventure throughout. Taking place in 1807 our hero once again finds himself riding shotgun, and with a seven barreled gun almost literally, on the coattails of the soon to be Duke of Wellington. I found this fifth book in the series a bit lugubrious but all in all a decent ride.