Agincourt
“The greatest writer of historical adventures today” (Washington Post) tackles his richest, most thrilling subject yet—the heroic tale of Agincourt.Young Nicholas Hook is dogged by a cursed past—haunted by what he has failed to do and banished for what he has done. A wanted man in England, he is driven to fight as a mercenary archer in France, where he finds two things he can love: his instincts as a fighting man, and a girl in trouble. Together they survive the notorious massacre at Soissons, an event that shocks all Christendom. With no options left, Hook heads home to England, where his capture means certain death. Instead he is discovered by the young King of England—Henry V himself—and by royal command he takes up the longbow again and dons the cross of Saint George. Hook returns to France as part of the superb army Henry leads in his quest to claim the French crown. But after the English campaign suffers devastating early losses, it becomes clear that Hook and his fellow archers are their king’s last resort in a desperate fight against an enemy more daunting than they could ever have imagined.One of the most dramatic victories in British history, the battle of Agincourt—immortalized by Shakespeare in Henry V—pitted undermanned and overwhelmed English forces against a French army determined to keep their crown out of Henry’s hands. Here Bernard Cornwell resurrects the legend of the battle and the “band of brothers” who fought it on October 25, 1415. An epic of redemption, Agincourt follows a commoner, a king, and a nation’s entire army on an improbable mission to test the will of God and reclaim what is rightfully theirs. From the disasters at the siege of Harfleur to the horrors of the field of Agincourt, this exhilarating story of survival and slaughter is at once a brilliant work of history and a triumph of imagination—Bernard Cornwell at his best.
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Crackdown
Paradise is the perfect escape for ex-Marine Nick Breakspear, captain of a charter yacht operation in the Bahamas, until he agrees to pilot a "detox cruise" for the drug-addled grown son and daughter of a powerful U.S. senator. Ambushed far from port, he is helpless to prevent the murder of a crew member by modern-day pirates who sink Nick's yacht before vanishing with the senator's kids. Having barely eluded death, Nick must immediately set sail for disaster once again. For there's a death to be avenged on the dark side of Eden, the senator is demanding that his lost children be found . . . and the woman Nick loves is being held prisoner by killers somewhere on Murder Cay.
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Das Zeichen des Sieges
England, Anfang des 15. Jahrhunderts. Der junge Nicholas Hook, Sohn eines mittellosen Schäfers, hat eine außerordentliche Gabe: Jeder Pfeil, den er abschießt, trifft sein Ziel. Um der Armut seiner Heimat zu entkommen, tritt er der Armee seines Königs Henry V. bei, die sich zum Kampf gegen die Franzosen rüstet. Doch das Soldatenleben ist hart und gefährlich. Als vor Harfleur die Ruhr ausbricht, sterben die Krieger wie die Fliegen. Nick überlebt mit knapper Not – mit Hilfe der schönen Melisande, die ihm beweist, dass nicht alle Franzosen Feinde sind.Schließlich bereitet sich Henry V. auf die letzte Schlacht vor. Bei Azincourt stehen nur noch 6000 Engländer einer überwältigenden Übermacht von 30 000 französischen Rittern gegenüber – eine aussichtslose Lage. Doch die Angreifer lassen einen unaufhörlichen Pfeilehagel auf ihre Feinde niederprasseln. Und auf dem schlammigen Acker in der Nähe der französischen Kanalküste wird Nick Zeuge eines Wunders ...Aus dem Englischen von Karolina FellDie Originalausgabe erschien 2008unter dem Titel «Azincourt» bei HarpeiCollinsPublisbers, London.
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Die Galgenfrist
London im Jahre 1817: Mit harter Hand bemüht sich die Obrigkeit, Unruhen und Kriminalität einzudämmen. Hinrichtungen sind an der Tagesordnung, Tausende sterben am Galgen. Captain Rider Sandman, ein unverschuldet in finanzielle Not geratener Gentleman, erhält vom Innenministerium den Auftrag, das Gnadengesuch von Charles Corday zu prüfen, der wegen Mordes an einer Gräfin zum Tod durch den Strang verurteilt wurde. Niemand zweifelt an der Schuld des Malers, auch Sandman hält seinen Auftrag für eine reine Formsache – bis ihm erhebliche Zweifel kommen. Es beginnt ein Wettlauf mit der Zeit, denn die Hinrichtung soll schon in sieben Tagen erfolgen. Doch die neuerlichen Ermittlungen werden nicht von allen Befragten gerne gesehen, und als der mysteriöse Seraphim Club Sandman eine hohe Bestechungssumme anbietet, die all seine Probleme auf einen Schlag lösen könnte, ist er sich sicher, auf der richtigen Spur zu sein …Der AutorBernard Cornwell wurde 1944 in London geboren. Nach seinem Geschichtsstudium arbeitete er als Reporter für die BBC. 1980 folgte er seiner Frau in die USA, und weil er keine Arbeitserlaubnis erhielt, begann er historische Romane zu schreiben. Bernard Cornwell lebt auf Cape Cod, USA.© 2001 by Bernard CornwellTitel der englischen Originalausgabe:Gallows Thief (HarperCollins Publishers, London)
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Gallows Thief
It is 1807 and portrait painter Charles Corday, charged with the murder of a Countess he was in the process of painting, has only seven days to live. Political pressures make it expedient for the Home Office to confirm his guilt. The man appointed to investigate is Rider Sandman, whose qualifications for the job are non-existent and who is currently down on his luck. The offer of even a temporary post, promising a generous fee for not much effort, seems ideal. But Sandman's investigations reveal much that does not fit the verdict, and many people determined to halt his activities. Sandman has a soldier's skills and he has remarkable, if unconventional, allies. But ranged against them is a cabal of some of the wealthiest and most ruthless men of Regency England. Sandman has a mere seven days to snatch an innocent man from the hungriest gallows of Europe. The hangman is waiting. It is a race against the noose.
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Sea Lord
A splendid thriller of skullduggery and smuggling, politics and passion, in the Carribean waters, with a twentieth-century Sharpe at the helm.
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Sharpes Aufstieg
Kurzbeschreibung.1809. Bitterer Winter beherrscht den Norden Spaniens. Die britischen Truppen ziehen sich nach La Coruña zurück. Lieutenant Richard Sharpe und eine versprengte Abteilung Schützen sind auf sich allein gestellt, eingekreist von der siegreichen Armee Napoleons. Sie haben nur eine Chance: Wenn sie sich Major Blas Vivar und seinen spanischen Aufständischen anschließen. Doch das hat seinen Preis, denn Vivar will die heilige Stadt Santiago de Compostela befreien, die von französischen Truppen besetzt ist. Sharpe und seinen Männern bleibt nichts anderes übrig, als einmal mehr ihren unbeugsamen Willen zu beweisen, um sich gegen die feindliche Übermacht durchzusetzen. Über den Autor.Bernard Cornwell, 1944 in London geboren und in Wessex aufgewachsen, arbeitete lange Jahre erfolgreich als Reporter für das BBC-Fernsehen. 1980 folgte er seiner amerikanischen Frau nach Cape Cod, wo er bis heute lebt und schreibt. In den USA und England feierte Cornwell bereits Triumphe mit einer Romanserie über die napoleonischen Kriege. In Deutschland wurde er bekannt durch seine Artus-Trilogie.Titel der englischen Originalausgabe: »Sharpe's Rifles«Aus dem Englischen von Bernd Müller.
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Stonehenge
Bernard Cornwell's new novel, following the enormous success of his Arthurian trilogy (The Winter King, Enemy of God, and Excalibur) is the tale of three brothers and of their rivalry that creates the great temple. One summer's day, a stranger carrying great wealth in gold comes to the settlement of Ratharryn. He dies in the old temple. The people assume that the gold is a gift from the gods. But the mysterious treasure causes great dissension, both without from tribal rivalry, and within. The three sons of Ratharryn's chief each perceive the great gift in a different way. The eldest, Lengar, the warrior, harnesses his murderous ambition to be a ruler and take great power for his tribe. Camaban, the second and an outcast from the tribe, becomes a great visionary and feared wise man, and it is his vision that will force the youngest brother, Saban, to create the great temple on the green hill where the gods will appear on earth. It is Saban who is the builder, the leader and the man of peace. It is his love for a sorceress whose powers rival those of Camaban and for Aurenna, the sun bride whose destiny is to die for the gods, that finally brings the rivalries of the brothers to a head. But it is also his skills that will build the vast temple, a place for the gods certainly but also a place that will confirm for ever the supreme power of the tribe that built it. And in the end, when the temple is complete, Saban must choose between the gods and his family. Stonehenge is Britain's greatest prehistoric monument, a symbol of history; a building, created 4 millenia ago, which still provokes awe and mystery. Stonehenge A novel of 2000 BC is first and foremost a great historical novel. Bernard Cornwell is well known and admired for the realism and imagination with which he brings an earlier world to life. And here he uses all these skills to create the world of primitive Britain and to solve the mysteries of who built Stonehenge and why. 'A circle of chalk, a ring of stone, and a house of arches to call the far gods home'
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Stormchild
Tim Blackburn, a famous round-the-world yachtsman, must discover the fate of his impulsive, brilliant but wayward daughter, Nicole. Nicole disappeared in the company of Caspar von Rellsteb, an environmental activist and leader of the Genesis Community. He and his followers believe that the planet can only be saved by ruthless force. Blackburn's boat, STORMCHILD, will carry him halfway around the world to the harshest land and the fiercest seas on earth. There, in a tumult of weather and emotion, Blackburn the hunter becomes the hunted as he precipitates a terrifying confrontation with the evil he finds; with men and women whose motives have been eroded by exhaustion and perverted by fanaticism; with the daughter he had once known, and now has to find again.
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Wildtrack
Nick Sandman's spine was shattered by a bullet in the Falklands. He has no money and no prospects, only a dream of sailing far away from his troubles on his boat, Sycorax. But Sycorax is as crippled as he is, and to make her seaworthy again, Nick must strike a devil's bargain with egomaniacal TV star Tony Bannister. Signing on to the crew of Bannister's powerful ocean racer,Wildtrack, Nick is expected to help sail her to victory. But the despised celebrity has made some powerful enemies who will stop at nothing for revenge. . . .From Publishers WeeklySome readers may quibble at the ambiguous ending, but Cornwell's first modern-day novel, after Redcoat and the Sharpe series, works very nicely. Narrator Nick Sandman, Falkland Islands hero and Victoria Cross recipient, is determined not only to walk again after a war wound but also to sail his ketch Sycorax to New Zealand. After two years' hospitalization, he is, barely, walking again, but Nick's return to Devon finds Sycorax beached and vandalized, apparently at the behest of TV talk-show host Tony Bannister. Legal difficulties force Nick into making a TV movie for Bannister in exchange for salvaging Sycorax. Complications arise immediately: Bannister is out to win the Cherbourg-Saint Pierre race and wants Nick to be navigator; Bannister's ex-father-in-law is out to avenge his daughter's "murder" aboard Bannister's ocean racer Wildtrack and wants Nick to help; Bannister's beautiful mistress Angela is out to make that TV movie; and Nick falls in love with Angela. The climax comes with Nick racing across the Atlantic in a howling gale to prevent Bannister's murder. Even landlubbers will enjoy Cornwell's terrific pacing, colorful characters and dry humor, and perhaps, will learn a few things, too (e.g., in sailing jargon, "scuttles" means portholes).
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1356 (Special Edition)
This special edition Ebook features exclusive extra content by the author, with an extended Historical Note and two contemporary accounts of the Battle of Poitiers.Go with God and Fight like the Devil.The Hundred Years War rages on and the bloodiest battles are yet to be fought. Across France, towns are closing their gates, the crops are burning and the country stands alert to danger. The English army, victorious at the Battle of Crécy and led by the Black Prince, is invading again and the French are hunting them down.Thomas of Hookton, an English archer known as Le Bâtard, is under orders to seek out the lost sword of St Peter, a weapon said to grant certain victory to whoever possesses her. As the outnumbered English army becomes trapped near the town of Poitiers, Thomas, his men and his sworn enemies meet in an extraordinary confrontation that ignites one of the greatest battles of all time.
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