Wendell's review
Flashman at the Charge by George MacDonald Fraser
George Macdonald Fraser's rather unique hero (the obnoxious bully of Thomas Hughes' pious Victorian classic TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS, reborn as a dashing, lustful paladin of the British Empire who's secretly one of the most cowardly scoundrels available in literature) had perhaps his best and most interesting outing in this 1973 novel. Forced through a ridiculous set of circumstances to join British forces in the Crimean War, Flashman survives the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava and Russian captivity to help defeat the Tsar's plans to conquer Central Asia (for a while, anyway) and threaten India. As good an entree as any into Flashman's world, FLASHMAN AT THE CHARGE particularly benefits from a marvelous literary portrait of the Crimea and the amusing spectacle of Flashman demonstrating "pluck" for the first and only time in his life.
