Hello Mr Cornwell, just a few points. Firstly there are hopelessly few books of yours that I haven’t read yet and I managed to find the first two Starbuck books in the “cheap” section of the local department store. It felt like sacrilege to buy them there but I couldn’t help myself. Read the first so far and loved it but wondered if it was a tough choice to have the main character in southern colours given the outcome of the war and knowing that the cause is always going to have a negative end?

And I’m having a writing argument and who better to ask but, the point is; that if there is a smell of, or like “shit” in the air, ie from a sewer or the slicing of guts in battle, then it is fair to actually use the word for realism? Thanks for your time.

Adrian