Best Selling Books by George MacDonald Fraser

A game of cards leads Flashman from the jungle death-house of Dahomey to the slave state of Mississippi as he dabbles in the slave trade in Volume III of the "Flashman Papers". When Flashman was inveigled into a game of pontoon with Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck, he was making an unconscious choice about his own future - would it lie in the House of Commons or the West African slave trade? Was there, for that matter, very much difference? Once again Flashman''s charm, cowardice, treachery, lechery and fleetness of foot see the lovable rogue triumph by the skin of his chattering teeth.

“A jolly read.”—The Wall Street Journal The tenth installment in The Flashman Papers finds Captain Harry Flashman of Her Majesty''s Secret Service in the antebellum South, where the irrepressible, globe-trotting Victorian becomes the target of blackmailing beauties. Evading danger, bedding women, and profiting from every opportunity, Flashman once again weasels his way into history, this time in John Brown’s raid of Harper’s Ferry, just before the Civil War. As a result of Flashy’s letching, lying, cheating, and stealing on land, on sea, and on the rails, not only did John Brown become a martyr, Lincoln became president, and the nation plunged into a bloodbath.

What is Flashy doing? -in the drawing room of a great English mansion with the redhot-blooded mistress of a violently jealous blue-blood? -in between a pair of Chinese beauties who are willing to do anything and everything to close the gap between East and West? -in the hold of a warship under fire, with a Malay maiden as explosive as the shells bursting above? -in the forced service of an African queen who lets a lover stay alive only as long as his power to please holds up? This unblushing cad, this lustful libertine, this infamous and irresistible antihero is clearing doing better than ever—in a round-the-world adventure that would make Queen Victoria pale with shock and swingers of today green with envy.

“Hilariously funny.”—The New York Times Book Review “Great dirty fun!”—Grand Rapids Press “The most entertaining anti-hero in a long time… Moves from one ribald and deliciously corrupt episode to the next… Wonderful and scandalous.”—Publishers Weekly The fourth volume of memoirs in which Harry Flashman confronts destiny with Lord Cardigan and the Light Brigade. Part of the Flashman series, comprising Flashman, Royal Flash, and Flash for Freedom, among others, which explores the successful though scandalous later career of the bully in Tom Brown''s School Days.

“Flashman strikes again… Wonderful… hilarious.”—USA Today Lusting after a clergyman’s wife, smuggling opium to Hong Kong, coupling with an Amazonian woman river pirate, groveling before a ruthless warlord, and becoming the sexual plaything of the most beautiful and evil woman in the world, Harry Flashman, the supreme antihero of the Victorian era, is ready to rise to the occasion to matter what depths of dishonor he must plumb. In this uninhibited and uproarious adventure, Flashman is once again at his irascible best.

“Hilariously funny.”—The New York Times Book Review “Great dirty fun!”—Grand Rapids Press “The most entertaining anti-hero in a long time… Moves from one ribald and deliciously corrupt episode to the next… Wonderful and scandalous.”—Publishers Weekly The seventh volume of the "Flashman Papers" records the arch-cad''s adventures in America during Gold Rush of 1849 and the Battle of Bighorn in 1876, and his acquaintance with famous Indian chiefs, American soldiers, frontiersmen and statesmen.

“Hilariously funny.”—The New York Times Book Review One of literature''s most delightful rakes is back in another tale of rollicking adventure and tantalizing seduction. The plucky Flashman''s latest escapades are sure to entertain devotees as well as attract new aficionados.

Raucous, funny send-up of pirate lore and legend.

From the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, outlaws reigned supreme on the contentious frontier between England and Scotland. Feud and terror, raid and reprisal, were the ordinary stuff of life—and a way of survival. Power was held by the notorious border reivers (the "steel bonnets," named for their flashy helmets), who robbed and murdered in the name of family: the famous clans (or "grains")—like Elliot, Armstrong, Charlton, and Robson—romanticized by Sir Walter Scott. In The Steel Bonnets, George MacDonald Fraser, author of the bestselling Flashman novels, and himself a borderer, tells the fascinating and bloody story of the reivers, their rise to power as ferocious soldiers of horse, and their surprisingly sudden fall from grace.

"Horse riding, sword fighting, fistfights, escapes, chases... If anyone is looking for a successor to James Bond, Flashy is the one."—The New York Times In Volume II of the Flashman Papers, Flashman tangles with femme fatale Lola Montez and the dastardly Otto Von Bismarck in a battle of wits which will decide the destiny of a continent. In this volume of The Flashman Papers, Flashman, the arch-cad and toady, matches his wits, his talents for deceit and malice, and above all his speed in evasion against the most brilliant European statesman and against the most beauiful and unscrupulous adventuress of the era. From London gaming-halls and English hunting-fields to European dungeons and throne-rooms, he is involved in a desperate succession of escapes, disguises, amours and (when he cannot avoid them) hand-to-hand combats. All the while, the destiny of a continent rests on his broad and failing shoulders.

This ninth volume of The Flashman Papers finds that history’s most unheroic hero, Sir Harry Flashman, is back in India, where his saga began. This time, our hero is sent by Her Majesty''s Secret Service to spy on the corrupt court of Lahore, on India''s Northwest Frontier. Flashy deals with a ravishing maharini and her equally sex-hungry maid, joins forces with an American adventurer with royal ambitions, and attempts to win the brightest jewel in England’s imperial crown at the cost of something he will never miss—namely, his honor.

George MacDonald Fraser wrote The Candlemass Road after completing his research and writing The Steel Bonnets, his nonfiction account of the Anglo-Scottish border Reivers. Young Lady Margaret Dacre was brought up in the genteel fashion at the court of Queen Elizabeth I. When her father is murdered, she inherits his lands in the English West March and is plunged into a world where violence and raiding are commonplace. Fraser’s characters are, as always, richly developed through vivid descriptions and witty dialogues. His novel is true to the spirit of the Anglo-Scottish frontier feud.

For this riotous Edwardian caper, the author of the bestselling "Flashman Papers" presents a raucous adventure that brings America''s Wild West to London''s West End and features arch-cad Harry Flashman.

It’s 1868 and Sir Harry Flashman, V.C., arch-cad, amorist, cold-headed soldier, and reluctant hero, is back! Fleeing a chain of vengeful pursuers that includes Mexican bandits, the French Foreign Legion, and the relatives of an infatuated Austrian beauty, Flashy is desperate for somewhere to take cover. So desperate, in fact, that he embarks on a perilous secret intelligence-gathering mission to help free a group of Britons being held captive by a tyrannical Abyssinian king. Along the way, of course, are nightmare castles, brigands, massacres, rebellions, orgies, and the loveliest and most lethal women in Africa, all of which will test the limits of the great bounder’s talents for knavery, amorous intrigue, and survival. Flashman on the March—the twelfth book in George MacDonald Fraser’s ever-beloved, always scandalous Flashman Papers series--is Flashman and Fraser at their best.

"Piracy''s tried-and-true hallmarks—treasure, treachery, intermittent romance and high-seas mutiny" from the Scottish author of the Flashman Papers series ( The Wall Street Journal ). George MacDonald Fraser was famed for his legendary series, featuring the incorrigible knave Harry Flashman. In the colorful standalone novel Captain in Calico, a never-before-published literary find, Fraser introduces another real-life anti-hero: Captain John Rackham, called "Calico Jack," an illustrious eighteenth-century pirate who marauded the Caribbean seas. On a tranquil evening in the Bahamas, Calico Jack, long wanted on counts of piracy, makes a surprise appearance at the Governor''s residence and asks for a pardon. A deal is brokered after Jack reveals the motive for turning himself in: love. When he last set sail from the Bahamas two years ago, Jack left behind a beautiful fiancée, and he hopes to win her back. But while Jack was off pirating, his beloved has become betrothed to a new man—the governor himself. It doesn''t take long for this truth to come to light, and after embarking on a new romance with famous Irish pirate Anne Bonney, Jack is quickly transformed back into a thieving captain in calico. With his trademark picaresque style, Fraser draws readers into the wild west of the British empire, where black sails prowl the waters and redemption can be found in the most unexpected places. "[An] energetic tale of piracy and peril . . . Suspenseful." — Publishers Weekly