- Published: 15 June 2011
- ISBN: 9781409044451
- Imprint: Transworld Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 464
On His Majesty's Service
(Matthew Hervey 11)
- Published: 15 June 2011
- ISBN: 9781409044451
- Imprint: Transworld Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 464
As a history of a little-known conflict, this is a fascinating lively romp.
THE TIMES, Saturday Review
What is left to be said about Allan Mallinson? Only this perhaps: he has done for the British army what C.S. Forester and Patrick O'Brian did for the royal navy, and his novels are every bit as addictive as theirs - indeed more addictive for those of us who prefer land to sea war, and find the details of military life more compelling than those of life on board ship. On His Majesty's Service is the tenth of his Matthew Hervey novels. The Napoleonic wars are long over: it is 1828. Catholic emancipation and parliamentary reform are in the air. There are riots in the country and talk of reducing the military establishment.Hervey, however, is sent, with his friend Captain Fairbrother, the illegitimate son of a Jamaican slave-owner, as an observer of the Russian army engaged in war against the Ottoman empire. It is unlikely that he will be long content merely to observe; he will also meet the future Prussian Field-Marshal von Moltke, architect of the wars which led to the recreation of imperial Germany, and at that time advising the Turks. Splendid, irresistible stuff, and not for addicts only.
Allan Massie, Spectator