Dear Bernard, My name is John Franti, and I am a university student majoring in history and currently finishing my final semester at university in Nebraska. I stumbled across your work quite by accident last spring. I picked up Sharpe’s Tiger, and by the end of the summer I had read the entire series – I found it absolutely wonderful. I’m just starting to read some more of your work, and I really do appreciate the care and attention you’ve given all of your novels, they stand up both as great pieces of fiction, and I cannot say enough how useful this kind of writing is to a history student trying to wrap his impressionable young mind around the lives of people living centuries ago. I’ve read O’Brien, Forrester, Shaara (both Michael and Jeff) along with countless non-fiction history books (I believe just about everything John Keegan has written…) and I cannot say truthfully enough how well your writing stacks up with the very best. I wanted to send you this note to thank you for many days of joyful reading, and a great window into the past. -John Franti