The first of Richard Sharpe’s Indian adventures, pitting him against the sinister Tippoo Sultan in the siege of Seringapatam, 1799. Like most of the Sharpe novels this one is based on a real campaign, and almost all of the actions described in the book really did take place. Sharpe begins this novel as a private and his worst enemy is not the Tippoo, nor even the Tippoo’s professional strongmen who had interesting ways of putting prisoners to death, but Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill who will continue to harass Sharpe all through the Indian novels.
