A different sort of book from Fraser - only short, almost a novella, with dense writing, very much in the style of the time, I assume. There's a long afterword where he explains his historical sources and I'll take his word for it.
Historical or not it's still influenced by other novels/films - you can imagine Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward playing the leads. It's a simple story, almost a Western - on the rough northern English frontier and beautiful English lady, who has inherited property, finds her tenants subject to blackmail demands, and hires a "broken man", Waitabout... who while broken can speak Latin, is handsome and super tough, to fight them. He ends up wiping them out, in an exciting sequence - which threatens to cause a border war.
What interested Fraser, apart from the period, was the subject of law and order and civilisation... what people are forced to do in an untenable situation. Its tough and moving (and there's a chance Waitabout could survive... isn't there?)
Although its only 150 or something pages it took me a while to read because the language was dense but it was worth it. The fight sequence was so well done I wish they'd been another.
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