Powieść utrzymana w konwencji groteski, która ośmiesza zarówno przywiązanie do tradycji i nowe mody, jak i relacje klasowe oraz sprawy związane z seksem. Przesłanie tej książki jest uniwersalne uświadamia nam, że żyjemy w trochę zwariowanym, ale bezsprzecznie ludzkim świecie.
Newly promoted, Major Richard Sharpe is given the task of rescuing a group of well-born women, held hostage high in the mountains by a rabble of deserters. And one of the renegades is Sergeant Hakeswill, Sharpe's bitter enemy.
It is the summer of 1812 and Richard Sharpe, newly recovered from the wound he received in the fighting at Salamanca, is given an easy duty; to guard a Commissary Officer posted to an obscure Spanish fort where there are some captured French muskets to repair. But unknown to the British, the French
Richard Sharpe is delighted when, after long months of patrolling duties, he and his regiment are summoned north by Wellington. But his new mission is desperate and dangerous: to go behind enemy lines to recover the gold, vital to the success of the war.
