Harry Flashman: the unrepentant bully of Tom Brown’s schooldays, now with a Victoria Cross, has three main talents – horsemanship, facility with foreign languages and fornication. A reluctant military hero, Flashman plays a key part in most of the defining military campaigns of the 19th century, despite trying his utmost to escape them all.
What was Harry Flashman doing on the slopes of Little Bighorn, caught between the gallant remnant of Custer’s 7th Cavalry and the attack of Sitting Bull’s braves? He was trying to get out of the line of fire and escape yet again with his life (if not his honour) intact.
Here is the legendary and authentic West of Mangas Colorado’s Apaches, of Kit Carson, Custer and Spotted Tail, of Crazy Horse and the Deadwood stage, gunfighters and gamblers, scoundrels and Indian belles, enthusiastic widows and mysterious adventuresses. The West as it really was: terrifying!
George MacDonald Fraser OBE was a bestselling historical novelist, journalist and screenwriter. Having worked on newspapers in Britain and Canada he is perhaps most famous for his series of Flashman novels and his anti-hero Harry Flashman. In addition to his novels he has also written numerous screenplays, most notably The Three Musketeers and the James Bond film, Octopussy. George MacDonald Fraser died in January 2008 at the age of 82.