Flash for Freedom!

Unbelievably funny. From the first brilliant sentence, we have the pleasure of being witness to a series of non-stop, hilariously horrendous mishaps visited upon poor, despicable Harry Flashman. The plot is as tight and the writing as crisp and witty as any book in the series. In "Flash for Freedom", MacDonald Fraser puts old Flashie through a wringer as incredible as it is unbelievably harsh. From a high-powered political house party, during which he puts the moves on Fanny Duberly and makes mildly anti-Semitic comments to future PM Disraeli, Flashman is politically ruined when he almost murders a man, is then forced by his malicious Scotch father-in-law to lay low on what Flash later discovers is a slave ship, goes on a slaving expedition in Africa, fights the American Navy, is coerced by the Underground Railroad into running a supercilious slave to freedom up the Mississipi, then becomes a slave driver on a Southern plantation, eventually being forced into slavery himself, subsequently escaping to freedom with an attractive octoroon, inspiring "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and running into Abe Lincoln along the way. MacDonald Fraser somehow makes it all seem plausible. Phew! As usual, we learn a good deal about history. Although Flashman couldn't give two pence about slavery, GMF paints a vivid picture of the brutality and corruption of the institution, while pointing out the necessary complicity of the Africans themselves and the naive romanticsm of the Abolitionists towards the slaves. John Charity Spring, one of the best characters in the Flashman series, is introduced in this novel. As with all of these books, you'll learn something through your laughter.

Flashman is shown at his vile best in this installment of his saga. Signed unknowingly onto a slave ship by his malicious father-in-law to get him out of the country following a scandal, Flashman plunges up to his whiskers into that century's nastiest business. Sailing under an insane, Latin-quoting captain, who brings his tea-serving, equally insane wife along for the voyage, Flashy's misadventures take him from the Slave Coast of Africa to the whorehouses of New Orleans, from the back roads of Mississippi to the frozen Ohio River. Fraser's research into the slave trade is compelling; this is one of the more detailed fictionalizations of the slave trade in most of its horrors that I've ever read. The author gets credit for layering his dark satire onto this diciest of subjects, not something every author would have dared, and not sparing it in the least. It is, of course, almost the perfect vehicle for Flashman's unPC sensibilities, if the reader will forgive the anachronism. His encounter with Abraham Lincoln is absorbing even while satirical; Fraser presents a Lincoln with a frontier-tuned wit that penetrates further than can the capital's shallower sophisticates .

Harry Flashman, the lovable misogynist, blackguard, cheater, liar, adulterer and above all coward, has returned in another rollicking adven- ture by George MacDonald Fraser. Shanghai-ed aboard a slave ship by his miserly Scottish father-in-law, Flashy soon finds himself smuggling "black ivory" across the Atlantic. Caught by the Yankee Navy, he masquerades as an abolitionist agent fighting the slave trade from within--and finds himself running slaves once again, this time north on the "Underground Railroad" to freedom. The author manages to create a story that is at once humorous, bawdy, witty, poignant and historically accurate. A must-read.

Flashman, his credentials are lying, cheating, womanizing, cowardice and incredible honesty! This is a rollicking romp through the American slave trade era. Besides an entertaining read it is factual, well researched, and ... well ... almost educational. Good historical fiction moves a character through real historic events, providing insight as well as information. Fraser is a past master.

If you are easily offended, then you will probably be offended by "Flash for Freedom," but if you are in search of well- written, yet hilarious historical fiction, then Flash is your man. Be forewarned though, if you are not careful you will learn more about history from this book than any textbook.