The last in the series and the dullest. You get a bad feeling reading in the introduction when Fraser praises Napier's mission to Abyssinia "in contrast to today"... it's like, uh-oh, Fraser's politics are spilling into his book. Flashman books are at their best on disasters and yet again Fraser teases us by having Flashman mention more interesting stories that were disasters, the US Civil War, Emperor Maximilian and Khartoum... instead there's this successful trudge through Abyssinia.
It's a different locale - probably why Fraser wrote this one - and Fraser can still describe pictures. He'd lost his ability with narrative and suspense. It perks up occasionally - hanging by a cage, the flreshy and horny queen, most of all the character of Theodore - but feels too repetitive: running, near death, rescued. Flashman gets out of trouble by luck than his wits.
There's no tension at the end. I get in real life it would've been scary for Flashman to be kidnapped by Theodore, but since we know he's going to live it's not scary especially as this section is "something might happen".
It's just dull. Hard to get through. I hope it's not just because I didn't read it as a kid.
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