Eye of the Tiger (Flashman and the Tiger - George McDonald Fraser)

Member Name: andrewl

Product:	Flashman and the Tiger - George McDonald Fraser
Date:	12/10/09 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great fun, well-researched, solid characterisation

Disadvantages: A bit of an odd collection

Part one of my holiday reading this year, Brigadier-General Sir Harry Flashman relates his twilight years in this eleventh and, sadly, penultimate volume of The Flashman Papers (the 'finder' of the papers, George MacDonald Fraser passed away early in 2008).

In three separate episodes ranging from his early sixties to his mid-seventies, Flashman proves there's no rogue like an old rogue. In The Road to Charing Cross (by far the longest installment, comprising a good two thirds of the book), Harry foils a plot to assassinate the Emperor of Austria, before dropping an old rival for his wife's affections in hot water in The Subtleties of Baccarat. His final hurrah then appears to take place in Flashman and the Tiger, where the elderly Flashy crosses swords with a man who once saved his life at Rorke's Drift.

The great thing about Flashman is that you read a few hundred pages of this self-confessed poltroon having the most outrageously flamboyant adventures in far-flung locales, before discovering that old Flashy, and sometimes his adversary, are actually the only fictional elements. This larger than life character leaves a very light footprint on recorded history, in spite of his cavorting in salt mines and acting as an immoral adviser to the future Edward VII. "Dirty Bertie" really was dragged into a libel case centering on alleged cheating in a game of baccarat in 1890, and the treaty which Flashman inveigles from a Russian diplomat really was scooped in full by the Times before it had even been formally ratified.

The many historical figures that pepper the book are drawn with just as much care as their fictional counterparts, and if you aren't entirely sure which is which (I was caught out by Princess Kralta), then that's a tribute to MacDonald Fraser's skill.

Just as Royal Flash dabbled with Anthony Hope's Prisoner of Zenda, Flashman and the Tiger sees our antihero caught up in another fictional universe as he struggles against the machinations of Colonel 'Tiger Jack' Moran. I'm still not sure what I think of this quirky little crossover, but I do enjoy seeing a certain 'Great Detective' get the occasional metaphorical bloody nose, as he's far too smug for his own good.

It's hard to find any signficant faults with Flashman and the Tiger. It's fair to say that the final episode, from which the book takes its name, is probably the slightest of the tales related, and the cover, with its lurid scene of battle in Africa, while Flashman stands posing with a Zulu shield and a roguish wink, doesn't really reflect on the contents, which on the whole show a much older Flashman moving more in political spheres than the purely military.

But these really are nit-picking quibbles. This is a rollicking collection of meticulously-researched adventure stories, with a brilliantly-drawn main character and no end of sex, violence and lively language. It's anthology nature makes it feel more like an expansion pack than a complete Flashman novel (an impression reinforced by the fact that each of the three adventures takes place across several years and tells at least two more or less separate stories), but it's no less brilliant for all that. I was particularly taken with the ending which, given that the twelfth and final Flashman novel deals with Flashy's exploits in 1868, long before any of the adventures related here, provides a fitting little coda to the old cad's lecherous career.

Flashman and the Tiger is available, as they say, from all good bookshops, for £7.99, and from Amazon for significantly less. My local bookshop has several Flashman books involved in the inevitable Buy 2, Get 1 Free table, so I strongly advise you to keep your eyes open and shop around.

Summary: Flashman's twilight years