Bernard Cornwell outdoes himself in building a powerful plot to illustrate the stubbornness of the often-scarred Captain Sharpe. In many of the most complicated stories in this series, the plot seems like an attempt to fill pages. In Sharpe's Battle, the enemies are vivid, obnoxious, dangerous, and intriguing. Sharpe continually tries to do the right thing and is punished for his efforts. For me, those elements make this war story work a lot better.

French Marshal Massena has been pulling back from his failed thrust toward Lisbon. The question now becomes whether or not Viscount Wellington can march his troops into Spain. In Sharpe's Battle, Wellington chooses to besiege Almeida so that the French troops there cannot be resupplied or relieved by Massena.

As the book opens, the captured King of Spain has ordered his personal guards unit made up of exiled Irishmen to report to Wellington to fight. The troops are led by a man whose mother was famous for her support for Irish rebels. Wellington and Major Hogan are doubtful that this "gift" is anything other than a Trojan Horse designed to create problems from within.

Sharpe is leading his men across the countryside when he spots French troops murdering civilians. Two of the men stay behind to assault a girl, and Sharpe captures them. In contrast to the rules of war, Sharpe refuses to exchange them . . . having them shot instead in front of their commanding officer, Brigadier General Guy Loup, who swears revenge on Sharpe. Loup's brigade has been using terrorist tactics to offset the partisans, and Sharpe wants Loup's head as much as Loup wants Sharpe's.

Back with the army, Sharpe is assigned to "train" the new troops under the leadership of timid Wagon Master General Runciman. Soon, the troops are deserting like rats leaving a sinking ship, but Sharpe wants more out of them. Loup senses an opportunity and decides to attach the remote camp where the royal guard is housed with massed force . . . helped by a little inside information. In the aftermath, Sharpe finds that he was become a pawn in a political game between the Spanish allies and Wellington over who will lead the combined forces into Spain.

Will Sharpe be able to escape from the claws of the factions?

The book culminates in an absolutely thrilling account of the battle of Fuentes de Onoro which featured an uncharacteristic mistake by Wellington, some remarkable soldiering, and unbelievable hand-to-hand combat within a village on a hillside.

The book ends with some remarkable ironies that will leave you thinking for some time to come.

This book features great writing and an thoroughly engaging story to test all aspects of Sharpe's mettle.

Cornwell has written this series all out of order, which is okay, but his style also evolved somewhat as he went along. The later-written volumes are much cleaner and less "hammy." Which means if you read the series by internal chronology, as I've been doing, there's a certain amount of up-and-down from one volume to the next. Anyway, it's spring 1811 and Sharpe is back in Portugal commanding the badly depleted Light Company of the South Essex Regiment. Then he has to take responsibility for a battalion of exiled Irishmen who have been serving as a guard unit to the imprisoned King Ferdinand of Spain. They're all glitter and no substance and Sharpe is supposed to arrange for them to fail so Lord Wellington will have an excuse to send them packing without upsetting the Spanish. But of course, being a contrary sort of person, Sharpe decides to take them in hand and make them into an effective unit. Enter the French Loup Brigade, a specialized unit that hunts down partisans and makes broad use of terror to accomplish its ends, and its leader has a bone to pick with Sharpe regarding his summary execution of a couple of child-rapists. Add in Col. Runciman, the army's obese Wagon Master General, who knows he's no kind of soldier (his parents wanted him to become a bishop), whom Sharpe comes to like despite himself. And then there's a spy who's sleeping with the ne'er-do-well commander of the Irish battalion. All these plots and subplots come to a head in the little village of Fuentes do Onoro, where the British and Portuguese come within minutes of losing the battle to the much larger French army -- which will mean losing the entire war. All the melodrama with the Loup Brigade and Runciman takes up the first half of the book; it's not one of the author's better efforts, frankly. His account of the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, on the other hand, is gripping in its nearly cinematic detail. No one can make you see the streams of blood flowing down the hill and taste the salt from the bitten-off cartridges like Cornwell.

Ignore the picky reviews about this being patterned on the TV show. I watched the TV series, I have the DVDs, and I have read every Sharpe book I can lay my hands on either in hard copy or on my iPhone. I saw this on TV a long time ago and am reading it for the first time. Hate to lay it down. This is an excellent read.