When the film sale of Flashman enabled Fraser to quit journalism and take up writing full time, he had so much energy he not only churned out more Flashmans and the McAuslan stories, but did this very long, extremely readable history of the Borderers. It was a labour of love, he says in the afterword, but is still an impressive peace of scholarship - trudging through all those old records to find out what happened.
Fraser is a wonderful writer and his prose is clean, evocative and concise. I admit I did get lost in the last third of the book keeping track of who was who - all the Careys and Howards and Grahames.
But he has a real feel for the subject particularly the people on the Border - their bravery, shiftiness, sense of loyalty, love of sport and fighting, and so on. I'm surprised British filmmakers haven't turned to this period more - it's full of blood, thunder, romance and action, you could truly make British Westerns here.
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