Black Ajax

Bringing historical fact spiritedly to life, Fraser tells the rollicking tale of how "the Black Ajax" became as famous a figure in England as Napoleon -- and just as much a threat to its establishment -- before he passed into boxing legend and created a precedent for modern black prizefighters.

George MacDonald Fraser is a renowned historian, screenwriter, and the author of ten books of addictively entertaining hysterical, er, historical fiction featuring the 19th-century scoundrel and adventurer Sir Harry Paget Flashman, V.C. In Black Ajax , his first new book of fiction to be published in the U.S. in three years, Fraser takes a break from editing the voluminous Flashman papers to tell the story of Tom Molineaux, a freed slave from New Orleans who challenged England's undefeated bare-knuckle champion and became one of the most famous public figures of the Regency era. Molineaux's rise from slavery to cause célèbre and idol of the Fancy is viewed through the eyes of those closest to him -- his loyal trainer Paddington Jones; manager and fight promoter Bill Richmond, a former slave and pugilist himself; gentlemanly adversary Tom Cribb; and Captain Buckley "Mad Buck" Flashman -- father of the redoubtable Sir Harry -- whose performance here does much to explain the family proclivity for scandal. As ever, Fraser's mastery of period detail and idiom make for a lively historical romp, but it is his sly and stinging commentary on racial prejudice and social injustice that places Black Ajax in the vanguard of historical fiction

Publishers Weekly

Taking a break from his delightful series about the Victorian scoundrel Harry Flashman, Fraser gives us a superb novel about Tom Molineaux, a freed slave from Virginia who was a boxing sensation in the early days of the sport in Regency England. Fraser's encyclopedic knowledge of 19th-century British mores and slang and his splendid eye for period color have never been put to better use. He tells the story of Molineaux through a series of narrators: Molineaux's trainer and second; contemporary boxing journalists; Flashman's rakish father, who takes up Tom's cause for a time; his childhood sweetheart; a lascivious footman; and others. All of them are characterized with a perfect ear for their particular dictionand, for those taken aback by the authentic vernacular, there is a useful glossary. The portrait of Molineauxvain, strutting, childlike, at once hugely courageous and profoundly vulnerableis memorable. Has there ever been a more vivid picture of the thrills and horrors of the early bare-knuckle boxing days, when the sport was at once illegal and a national obsession? For anyone interested in the period, in the place of a black man in a highly stratified society and in a compelling story of courage and ultimate sorrow, this is the book. (Apr.)

George MacDonald Fraser is the bestselling author of the Flashman series and also of the novels Mr. American and The Pyrates and his war memoir, Quartered Safe Out Here. He lives in Scotland.