The Flashman Papers II.

Take a scoundrel. Add a dash of cruelty, a pinch of vanity, a bushel-load of cowardice and a peck of lust. Then add the magic ingredient that makes you actually like him. If I knew what it was I'd make a fortune - as it is, I thoroughly enjoy reading the Flashman books! In this one, Flashy's lust and disdain get him into a spot where his cowardice makes him do heroic things, and once more escapes unscathed, as is proved by the book being written based on his 'memoirs'. Adventure, intrigue, and a cowardly hero make for a fast-paced and engrossing tale.

Picked this up from at a meetup. Unfortunately the international bookcrosser we were meeting up to welcome didn't arrive but the company was fabulous anyway. I read the initial Flashman when it was a promotional book in The Times last summer. I found it so bad that I knew I must read more of them!

This is the second in the Flashman series and the second one I've read. I really didn't engage with this story as much as I did with the last one. It seemed like a huge effort to drag myself kicking and screaming through the fighting and the feuding of the Danish. As this story centered on aspects of history I am completely unfamiliar with, it may have tainted my approach and interest but I doubt it. Even the promissed raunchy bits were more tame and less scurrilous than promissed. I have high hopes that our 'hero' Flashman will rise again to cower and simper his way through another trial or tribulation.

I work in the museum where this book was left and normally would have handed it to lost property but since the sticker on the cover encouraged me to keep it, I did.
I've never heard of this series and normally wouldn't read this kind of thing but it's a ripping yarn and Flashman is such a charismatic coward and womaniser. Thoroughly enjoying trash.

CAUGHT IN LONDON GREAT BRITAIN