To Do and Die

by Patrick Mercer

fine book in fine dw 1st ??? HarperCollins 2009 edition hardcover In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, Military Fiction

376 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Born in 1956, Patrick Mercer read History at Oxford University before joining the Army. He commanded his battalion in Bosnia and Canada. Previously receiving a gallantry commendation, he was awarded the OBE in 1997. In 1999, Patrick Mercer accepted a post as the Defence Reporter for the Today Programme. In the 2001 election, he won the Tory seat in Newark. A respected historian, he has already published a non-fiction account of the Inkerman battle during the Crimean War.

Reviews

[[ J o ]]

Total cover buy and I still own it because he looks like a ginger Simon Neil from Biffy Clyro and I can't quite get myself to throw it out. Look at that uniform.

And I recall nothing of the book, which I think is a very good thing.

[Jason]

Not bad, ok battle scenes but they where few and far between and some were too short to pointless. I found the pacing a bit disjointed and the characters i wanted to like more but found pretty stale. The downtime and camp life was nothing new but seems to be a main focus of the book and let down the story immensely.

[Robert Hepple]

Published in 2010, 'To Do and Die' is an adventure story set against the background of a regiment in the British Army during the Crimean War. I had heard from some sources that the story was a little slow in getting going, but I didn't find this at all. There are some slow sequences, which have a purpose in that rare thing called character development and I found that it worked well for me. An it was good to learn a little about the Crimean War - clearly a lot more happened than the Charge of the Light Brigade! Enjoyable.

[Leigh]

3.5 STARS! I enjoy this book and found it insightful into a conflict I know very little about. I just found that it moved a bit slower than it could have. I loved the attempt from the author to voice and portray the psychological effects of warfare on the soldiers. Looking forward to reading the next in the series!

[Nigel Lawrence]

Attractive story-telling from this politician.

[Andrew]

Somewhat dry. Kept comparing it to Cornwell's work. Battlefield scenes were okay, but not the most enthralling I've ever read. I daresay Mercer will get better as he writes more books.

[David]

Despite a promising start, if I'm honest, I actually found this book quite hard to get into. Never really grabbed me in the way, say, a Sharpe novel does despite having a similar theme: a tale about soldiers in the midst of a war (in this case, the Crimea).

I don't think the writing style really helped either, which I found could be quite dense and needlessly convoluted, and the heavy emphasis on the vernacular of the time also meant that it was quite easy to lose track of what was going on or what the characters were even talking about!

All in all, unfortunately, not really that impressed by this book.

[Marcus]

slow start was even thinking of given up but by charpher 4 i got caught up an wanted to see wat happen. this book didnt grip me like Bernard Cornwells Starbuck chronicles because of the slow drawing out pace which was far from griping. but in away it held me to find out the out come of Anthony Morgan

[Chris]

I really enjoyed this. It had a rare un-polished feel to it. Maybe that was because it was the author's debut book, but it gave it a more real, gritty feel and really brought to life the filth and horror of the Crimean war.

[Tom]

My first foray into the crimean war, fascinating albeit bloody stuff and frankly not a bad debut from a 'from former soldier, BBC defence correspondent and MP' - more please.

[D4ngerousBeans]

Great book , quite like the Bernard Cornwell "Sharpe books" , but the descriptions are a bit more graphic , learned a lot about the crimea war , in this first of a trilogy .

[Daniel]

I stuck with it. Found it a drag at times but dont like to give up. Not sure if i will even attempt any of the others.