Hi Bernard,

It’s done. I’ve read ‘Sharpe’s Assassin’! And I have very much enjoyed it following Richard Sharpe’s adventures, ever since I first started in the late 80’s. My Dad and I have always been huge fans of military history, although particularly Roman, WW2, and Napoleonic Periods. One day, we found Sharpe’s Eagle in an old Reader’s Digest tome – the title page had a fantastic picture of British infantry stood and firing their muskets. Sharpe himself was amongst their ranks, staring back at me with a mixture of hard confidence and mild curiosity. I didn’t get into (serious) reading until I decided to spend some birthday book tokens at a local WH Smiths – as I recall purchased Rifles, Company, Enemy, and Honour, there and then, on the spot. The young lady who served me couldn’t help but remark about how exciting those adventures looked. They were the Fontana paperbacks, each had a distinctive colour (Dark Green, Blue, Verdant Green, Black, respectively to the titles I listed earlier) on the front cover bordering a nice oil painting effecting the story’s period, depicting Sharpe in action. Over the years, I picked up others, such as Siege (Purple), Regiment (Maroon), Sword (Light Blue), Revenge (Orange)….I began to wonder if they were going to run out of colours!

Finishing the series, as you mentioned Assassin is the very last Sharpe adventure, I also felt quite sad. But I still have them on the shelf and, rest assured, sometime in the future I shall enjoy marching with Sharpe all over again! Thank you for gifting the character Richard Sharpe to the world :) I have enjoyed all his adventures immensely.

Robert Douglas