Allan Mallinson

Allan Mallinson soldiered for thirty-five years, joining the King's Own Royal Border Regiment in 1969, commanding the 13th/18th Royal Hussars from 1988 to 1991, and retiring as a brigadier in 2004 after a spell as military attaché in Rome. Fourteen novels follow Matthew Hervey, an officer of the invented 6th Light Dragoons, from Waterloo through India and southern Africa. A Call to Arms carries Hervey back east, to a hard march and a running fight with Burmese war boats near Chittagong. Rumours of War puts him in Portugal in 1826 among officers backing the regent, his thoughts sliding back to the Peninsula. An Act of Courage begins at Christmas the same year with Hervey held in the fortress of Badajoz, remembering the siege of 1812 while friends in Lisbon plan something reckless to get him out. Mallinson has also written straight history, including The Making of the British Army, and defence commentary for The Times and the Daily Telegraph.