I've tried reading Allan Mallinson's output before, which is why this one was relegated to a bog book.It sure looks exciting from the front cover doesn't it ? Cor, sojers, fightin' an adventure !Well the covers the best bit. Come on now, that can't be right Mr D, surely ? Well it is. and to coin a phrase, I'll tell you why.You see this isn't Sharpe. No. Or even Lausard. This is the top end of the British army. I have no doubt that this book recreates the pomposity, snobbery and tactical incompetence associated with this period accurately, but oh gawd is it boring. It takes ages to get going and when it does I found myself not giving a damn.It's not even Napoleonic. Well not technically it's a decade after it was all over and based on flashbacks to the siege of Badajoz (which Cornwell has already done with aplomb) and the relatively obscure civil war spilling over and around the Portugese/Spanish border.Dull as ditchwater. Major Hervey isn't a particualry likeable character anyway and this effort doesn't improve that. He's a smartarse soldier and a sycophant. I found myself wishing they'd have left him in Badajoz and thrown away the key.It drones on and on, bringing in even more ghastly titled characters which you all hope get massacred. Maybe I'm being harsh though. Or maybe spoilt on a diet of Cornwell, Scarrow and Igguldsen. You make your own mind up. If you like a stuffed shirt hero, dull prose waffling on and on about teeth-itchingly military regulations and minutae then fine. If you want a rollocking good read with action and excitement then perm any one (whatever happened to the pools?) from Cornwell, Scarrow, (both), Igguldsen , Howard, Kilworth, Napier, Mercer, Flint, or Shaara.
