My daily reading tends to take me in a journey around various “old favourite” fiction authors regularly interspersed with non-fiction and with the occasional odd foray into something new on the fiction front. Obviously, I always enjoy the books by my favourite fiction writers otherwise I guess I’d stop reading them but I also find that before I pick up the latest title in a series I find myself thinking like “oh, not another one of those stories again”. Sometimes, that thought is so strong that I delay starting the next book and have a few non-reading days but in the end I always pick up the next selection, start reading and find that I am almost instantly reminded how much I enjoy that author’s work. So it was with the latest volume in George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman series which I completed recently. In “Flashman in the Great Game” Harry Flashman finds himself accidentally, unavoidably and, of course, unwilling, sucked into the world of undercover diplomacy at the time of the Indian Mutiny. The story is the usual mix of Flashy getting into (and with huge bundles of luck out of) various scrapes, being unjustifiably lauded for his bravery by those around him and, in inimitable style, finding an outlet for his, how can I put this, more physical charms. Flashman is a character that any reasonable person should detest but I suspect it is impossible to read these books without finding him highly likeable and without standing right behind him through all his adventures.
Tim O'Hare 