The acclaimed twenty-first novel in the number one bestselling series featuring Richard Sharpe. In the winter of 1811 the war seems lost. All Spain has fallen to the French except for Cadiz now the Spanish capital & itself under siege. In Cadiz Richard Sharpe discovers more than one enemy. One of them a baleful priest finds a weapon to break the British alliance & Sharpe must find ways to defeat him in a sinister war of knife & treachery in the dark alleys of the city. As a small British force is trapped by a French army their only hope lies with the outnumbered redcoats who on a hill beside the sea refuse to admit defeat. & there in the sweltering horror of Barrosa Sharpe finds his old enemy Colonel Vandal once again.