Plenty of upsetting language but the first classic Flashman. It's full of superb sequences: the card game (Fraser was always good at sports competitions), the visit to the Dahomey kingdom and the terrifying fleeing from the Amazons, the hell of a slave ship, his various adventures in the US (brothel, underground railroad agent, plantation manager, slave), the final escape (ripping off Uncle Tom's Cabin but better than the use of Prince of Zenda because it doesn't take up the whole novel). For all Flashman's bad attitudes on race, to put in mildly (and to be frank Fraser wasn't that crash hot) the novel does convey the horror of slavery: the ships, the auctions, the plantations, the treatment.
Stuffed full of memorable characters: John Charity Spring and his wife, Loony the nutty sailor, kinky Mrs Mandeville, Abe Lincoln, George Randolph the escaped slave, Cassie the traumatised slave girl. The plot is full of twists and turns - Flashman is constantly on the up then in trouble then on the up and then in trouble. It's perhaps the most exciting/inventive in the series.
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