Richard Sharpe avoids the tyrannical Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill and endeavours to rescue a British officer from under the nose of the Tippoo of Mysore. But in fleeing Hakeswill, Sharpe enters the exotic and dangerous world of the Tippoo. An adventure that will require all of his wits just to stay alive, let alone save the British army from catastrophe.

The story is seen through the eyes of Uhtred, a dispossessed nobleman, who is captured as a child by the Danes and then raised by them so that, by the time the Northmen begin their assault on Wessex, Alfred's kingdom and the last territory in English hands, Uhtred almost thinks of himself as a Dane.

The year is 1342. The English, led by Edward III, are laying waste to the French countryside. The army may be led by the King, but it is the archers, the common men, who are England's secret weapon. The French know them as Harlequins. Thomas of Hookton is one of these archers. But he is also on a personal mission: To avenge his father's death and retrieve a stolen relic.

Indien, 1799. Die britische Armee bereitet sich auf die Belagerung der Inselfestung Seringapatam vor, als ein britischer Offizier in Gefangenschaft gerät. Der junge Soldat Richard Sharpe soll den Mann befreien. Um dem tyrannischen Sergeant Hakeswill zu entkommen und sich vor einer Auspeitschung zu retten, nimmt Sharpe den Auftrag an. Doch die Stadt des indischen Herrschers Tipu Sultan ist fremdartiger und gefährlicher, als er sich jemals hätte träumen lassen. Plötzlich liegt auch das Schicksal seiner Kameraden in Sharpes Händen.

The first book in Bernard Cornwell's best-selling series on the American Civil War. It is summer 1861. The armies of North and South stand on the brink of America's civil war. Nathanial Starbuck, jilted by his girl and estranged from his family, arrives in the capital of the Confederate South, where he enlists in an elite regiment being raised by rich, eccentric Washington Faulconer.