Sharpe's Tiger

the series' preface, which details Sharpe's adventures in India. Before the Peninsular War, Richard Sharpe was an unseasoned young private soldier whose experiences are chronicled in Sharpe's Tiger.

Sharpe, his regiment, and Arthur Wellesley, the rising star of the general staff, are going to begin the siege of Seringapatam, the island stronghold of the Tippoo of Mysore. This potentate has gone to great efforts to protect his city from invasion, but the British have to remove him from his tiger throne. He is also constantly encircled by tigers, both real and artificial.Any Tippoo prisoner may anticipate a brutal outcome.

Sharpe seizes the opportunity to try a rescue when a senior British commander is taken prisoner by Tippoo's soldiers, hoping to get away from the despotic Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill. However, after escaping Hakeswill, Sharpe enters the strange, perilous, and baffling Tippoo world. He will need all of his cunning to survive, much alone avert a catastrophic event for the British troops.

Bernard Cornwell has meticulously researched and detailed the Sharpe novels with such attention to detail that he has recreated the 1799 campaign against Seringapatam, which established British dominance over southern India. The campaign involved brutalized soldiers taking on an incredibly sophisticated and ancient civilization. Sharpe's Tiger is his biggest adventure to yet, set against a backdrop of startling violence, pitiless warfare, exquisite palaces, terrible poverty, and dazzling luxury.