Fast moving and bloody, this is an adventure that is not for the faint hearted. David re-creates Georgian Ireland, vividly weaving the hero Lorn’s mission to bring Colonel Black, a maverick brutal monster who kills for pleasure to justice, into a wealth of period detail and description. “Liberty or Death” the debut novella of David Cook is a tour de force, a superb struggle through the battles of the Irish troubles of 1798. The inaccuracy of the Brown Bess appears to be based upon two factors: The British army did not teach or emphasize individual marksmanship and they used undersized balls for speed of reloading. On a whim, I did a little research and found that with properly sized balls, modern shooters have found the Brown Bess, from which the carbine was derived, to be accurate against man-sized targets at 50 yards. I was planning to offer some criticism of a character "drawing a bead" on and shooting a rebel with a smooth bore cavalry carbine. In addition to the story of men and women in battle, there is also a manhunt and a mystery. Even in the medium of a novella, he is able to develop his characters enough to make them interesting. His writing is full of historical detail and descriptions of people and places. Cook is both a good writer and a good story teller. I read Cook's collection of short stories, BATTLE SCARS, which led me to try this novella of the Irish rebellion (or fight for liberty) during the Napoleonic wars.
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