The latest book in the brilliant Sharpe series bring Sharpe to Portugal, and reunites him with Harper.
It is 1809 and Lieutenant Sharpe, who belongs to a small British army force that has a precarious foothold in Portugal, is sent to look for Kate Savage, the daughter of an English wine shipper. But before he can discover the missing girl, the French onslaught on Portugal begins and the city of Oporto falls.
Sharpe is stranded behind enemy lines, but he has Patrick Harper, he has his riflemen and he has the assistance of a young, idealistic Portuguese officer. Together, they have to find the missing girl and extricate themselves from the entanglements of Colonel Christopher, a mysterious Englishman who has his own ideas on how the French can be ejected from Portugal.
There comes a newly arrived British commander in Lisbon, Sir Arthur Wellesley, and just when Sharpe and his men seem doomed, Sir Arthur mounts his own counter-attack, an operation that will send the French army reeling back into the northern mountains. Sharpe becomes the hunter instead of the hunted and he will exercise a dreadful revenge on the men who double-crossed him.
