As a story of Napoleon's Russian campaign, it is interesting in parts. As a mystery it fails utterly. ( )

La mode des policiers historique est parfois décevante, mais là, le charme opère... quelques inexactitudes de vocabulaire mais un grand plaisir! ( )

This French novel of Napoleon's assault on Russia is a curious hybrid. It starts off ostensibly as a military detective novel - Captain Margont is summomed to Eugene Napoleon and charged with investigating a nasty murder which appears to have been carried out by a colonel in the French Grand Armee.
From then on it lurches from battle to battle only allowing Capt Margont time to investigate between skirmishes and thus ends up more of a Sharpe type campaign novel than a crime one.
The author is obviously more of a Napoleonic scholar and less a crime novelist, so I was disappointed with the novel on this basis, as it appeared to be marketed more as a crime novel than a military history one (which I wouldn't normally choose to read).
The battle scenes went on and on which slowed up the detective work and at just over 400 pages made it a rather flabby read for me.
I would probably read the follow-up to see if it was taughter ... an easy but over-long and not quite what I expected type of read. ( )