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 enlarge | Manufacturer: Signet
Category: EBooks
List Price: $6.99
Buy New: $5.59
You Save: $1.40 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 11691
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
ASIN: B000QBYF2M
Publication Date: August 3, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 A high-water mark in the Rifleman Sharpe series March 6, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bernard Cornwell's series of Sharpe novels has delighted countless readers over the years. Cornwell is (famously or infamously, depending on your perspective) writing these novels out of historical sequence, so even though while "Sharpe's Company" is in the middle of the Sharpe series chronologically, it is among the earliest books Cornwell wrote about Wellington's favorite rogue. And it is easily among Cornwell's best books ever - thrilling, ghastly, funny, and with perhaps Cornwell's greatest villain, Obadiah Hakeswill.
[Full disclosure - I read "Sharpe's Company" after reading the terribly disappointing "Hannibal Rising," and have Cornwell up on a bit of a pedestal right now. A gushing review follows.]
Like all soldiers from the stews of London, born without name or wealth, Richard Sharpe started life in the British army as a lowly private. While serving with Lord Wellington (then merely Colonel Wellesley), Sharpe had the misfortune of serving under Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill, a grossly fat and evil man who knows that he cannot die - he even survived a hanging! Taking an instant hatred to Sharpe, Hakeswill has Sharpe flogged in events chronicled in Cornwell's "India Trilogy," a sub-set of the Sharpe novels. Sharpe swears revenge and thinks he has killed Hakeswill off . . . only to have the insane Sergeant return in "Sharpe's Company."
Hakeswill is the kind of man who will trump up flogging charges on a soldier in order extort sexual favors from the soldier's desperate wife . . . and then kill her and frame her husband. Truly evil, Hakeswill's love for rape is only matched by his hatred of Sharpe. So what happens when Hakeswill comes across Sharpe's lover, the gorgeous partisan Teresa? He must have her, both to possess her beauty and to ruin Sharpe.
And also, what is to happen when Sharpe finds himself demoted when a wealthier man buys his Captaincy and Hakeswill is put in charge of the 95th Rifles? A mere Lieutenant, Sharpe still outranks Hakeswill, but just barely. This gives Hakeswill the opportunity to ruin the Rifles, the only other thing Sharpe holds as dear as Teresa.
Things are dire enough for Sharpe, what with the return of the mad, gibbering Sergeant. But he must also contend with Wellington's siege of Badajoz, perhaps the most impregnable French-held fort in all of Spain. Even the redoubtable Major Hogan despairs of British boots ever getting inside that mountain of rock and guns. And yet Sharpe must lead men inside, if not only for his honor and to earn his Captain's bars, but also to save Teresa and his new-born daughter, Antonia, who live inside the fortress.
Cornwell writes a battle scene as well as anyone, and he has never been in finer form than with his description of the horrific siege. Perhaps shockingly for a proud Brit, Cornwell pulls no punches at the terrible crimes committed by the British soldiers once they crack open those walls - the robberty, rape and murder of the innocents is one of the most depressing passages you will ever read.
For high adventure, slightly leavened with comedy, you will not find anything better than "Sharpe's Company." Read these novels in order - don't start with this book, because the characters will make much more sense if you have the entire back-story.
A Great Series August 15, 2006
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is another entry on the Sharpe series. It is fun, entertaining and very readable. Cornwell's research is as excellent as usual. He takes some licenses for the shake of the story and continuity, but this is OK. Some people are outraged by the portrait of some of the real historical characters, but historical characters are rarely depicted accurately in historical fiction, so I think this can be forgiven. Besides, usually a more serious account of these characters is given at the end of the book on the Historical Note.
Many people insist in compare this series with Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. I don't think this is fair for any of the series, they are different entities. What they have in common is that once you start you may get hooked and devour one book after another...
And in the literary world today that is a rare and marvelous thing.
 Hawkeswill kills everything including this book August 11, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I've eagerly poured through this great series, but was sorely disappointed to see a re-appearance of Sgt. Hawkeswill. His presence ads nothing to this book, other than a great unbelievable diversion.
Sharpe mutters about his life-long desire to kill his arch nemesis Sgt. Hawkeswill at least every 200 pages of every book in the series. Then Sharpe, who has not hesitated to kill before, finds Hawkeswill alone in a barn raping his wife, and then decides to let him go?????? This is the same man that murdered 500 innocent people just so he could leave a city, and now he suddenly wants an honorable public death for for his arch enemy??? Cornwell has made Hawkeswill into the ultimate evil nemesis, and he is just too evil and too lucky to be believed. Having Hawkeswill again and again dance around Sharpe and his friend Sgt. Harper makes Sharpe's other exploits all that more unbelievable. How could anyone that is so easily fooled by the insane Hawkeswill accomplish all the heroics described in this and other books? Here is a guy that tracked one enemy through mountains, rivers, etc. for weeks, just for beating him up, but when he finds Hawkeswill raping his wife (for the second time), threating to kill his child, after Hawkeswill has already killed his good friend Cpt. Knowles, and had Sgt. Harper flogged and demoted, he lets Hawkeswill jump out the window without even a chase???? The Sharpe character wanders all over the place from a vile evil killing machine to a goof-balled mush-mellon.
Fortunately, we have not had to contend with Hawkeswill for a long time in the series, and hopefully we will not see him again.
 One of the better Sharpe novels April 1, 2006
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
"Sharpe's Company" is one of the better books in the Sharpe series with a mostly convincing plot, a geniunely interesting series of complications for our hero Richard Sharpe to deal with (including a demotion, the birth of a daughter and the return of the evil Sgt. Hakeswill) and some really terrific battle scenes.
If you've read any of the Sharpe in India "prequel" novels ("Sharpe's Tiger," "Sharpe's Triumph" and "Sharpe's Fortress"), this is an especially rewarding book because of the return of Sharpe's old nemesis Hakeswill.
While a great adventure yarn, the book isn't quite perfect. As some previous reviewers have noted, there are a few contrived lapses in the way the characters behave, particularly the failure of the normally aggressive Sharpe to quickly and cleanly end his Hakeswill problem. But, if you've read the Sharpe in India prequels, you're likely to just see this as an ongoing weakness of Sharpe, who tended to do things in India such as force Hakeswill into a snake pit and then walk off without ensuring that the snakes actually finished off Hakeswill. (If I wanted to get all literary, I could possibly account for this by spinning out some psychological theory about Hakeswill's role as a distorted father figure for the orphaned Sharpe, but, hey, this really isn't *that* kind of historical novel ...)
A bad guy Returns! March 23, 2006
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
It's a good book. You always have time for a good Sharpe's adventure. Especially because Obadiah Hawkeswille reappears in this book.
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