It's 1868 and Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., arch-cad, amorist, cold-hearted soldier, and reluctant hero, is back in the 12th book in Fraser's ever-beloved Flashman Papers series.

It's 1868 and Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., arch-cad, amorist, cold-hearted soldier, and reluctant hero, is back in the 12th book in Fraser's ever-beloved Flashman Papers series.

It's 1868 and Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., arch-cad, amorist, cold-headed soldier, and reluctant hero, is back! Fleeing a chain of vengeful pursuers that includes Mexican bandits, the French Foreign Legion, and the relatives of an infatuated Austrian beauty, Flashy is desperate for somewhere to take cover. So desperate, in fact, that he embarks on a perilous secret intelligence-gathering mission to help free a group of Britons being held captive by a tyrannical Abyssinian king. Along the way, of course, are nightmare castles, brigands, massacres, rebellions, orgies, and the loveliest and most lethal women in Africa, all of which will test the limits of the great bounder's talents for knavery, amorous intrigue, and survival.

• Flashman on the March--* the twelfth book in George MacDonald Fraser's ever-beloved, always scandalous Flashman Papers series--is Flashman and Fraser at their best.