Read Sharpe’s Story today. Liked the background. Pleased to read that the Lucille’s gone in Sharpe’s Challenge doesn’t mean she’s dead. Of all the women you’ve killed off who were involved with Sharpe the only one that really stuck in my throat was the girl in Sharpe’s Prey. I like to think she eluded Pumphrey’s killers and that Sharpe has a son he doesn’t know about. Liked Sharpe’ Christmas though there was the small matter of allied contingents in Paris that the French wouldn’t have liked. The last, including British didn’t leave until 1819 and the installed Bourbon didn’t last a year after that. I liked too Sharpe’s challenge. You have Sharpe in South America where British policy was to end the Spanish empire there, central to which were the 6000 Peninsula veterans many riflemen who formed the core of Bolivar’s army and Argentina which stopped dead in their tracks Brazil’s expansionist tendency. Not that the British didn’t help Brazil secure independence from Portugal -Cochrane again. Always puzzled as to why Sharpe never did sort out his half-pay or ever rejoin his rifle battalion after the yeomanry raised South Essex would have been demobilized. Thanks for a magnificent series. Richard Oakley