Most of Sharpe’s books describe actions abroad (Britain’s military, very sensibly, doesn’t believe in playing home games), but in Sharpe’s Regiment our hero is sent home to raise soldiers for his regiment, the South Essex, and once in England he runs into an old enemy – Sir Henry Simmerson, once a Colonel of the South Essex and now, what else, a taxman. Except for top and tail sequences in the Pyrenees all the action takes place in England where Sharpe has to uncover a ‘crimping’ scheme whereby recruits are sold like slaves. His life is also brightened by Simmerson’s niece, Jane, and the Dowager Countess Camoynes.
