Flashman's Lady
George MacDonald Fraser
368 pages, including footnotes
published in 1977

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The Flashman books are very much comfort reading to me, something to read in between more demanding books. Not that these are simplistic or unrewarding books, far from it. It's just that they read so nicely and quickly. George MacDonald Fraser is a natural storyteller and could make anything interesting.

Case in point: cricket, with which the first part of Flashman's Lady is filled. Never seen the point of it, never figured out the rules nor particularly want to. Now keep in mind that the cricket here isn't even the modern game, but the game as it was played in the early 1840ties and you understand the difficulties... Yet despite these handicaps, George MacDonald Fraser once again managed to keep my attention --partly because he himself is an enthusiast of the game.

But it's not all cricket --least of all Flashy's own behaviour, either on or off the cricket field. Nothing unusual there then. What is unusual is that Elspeth, Flashy's wife, is involved in the action as you may have surmised from the title. She gets herself kidnapped and he has to go and rescue her -quite against his usual principles.

The book is roughly divided in three parts. As said, in the first part Flashy gets involved in cricket, through which he and Elspeth get acquainted with Don Solomon, the villain of the piece. He takes them on a luxury cruise in his yacht to Singapore, where he leaves Flashy for dead and takes Elspeth to Sarawak in Borneo, the biggest pirate paradise in South East Asia. In the final part, all three end up in Madagascar, where Flashie becomes a slave to its uite mad queen and has to obey her every wish. Fortunately most of these wishes involve one of the activities he's best at --and cricket it ain't...

As usual with the Flashman books, there's an extensive collection of footnotes to document the historical truth of the situations poor old Flashy ends up in. Also as usual, I heartily recommend this book.