FLASHMAN (NEW EDITION)

When he is expelled from boarding school for drunkenness in 1839, Harry Flashman enlists in the army, only to find himself, after getting into a duel, posted to Scotland, where he dishonors a young woman and is forced to marry her. To rebuild his reputation, he decides to go to India to try his luck there, where chance, his innate cowardice, and his talent for deception accidentally turn him into a hero of the British retreat from Kabul. Flashman is a despicable antihero, a cheeky rogue of the worst kind, and yet the narration of his adventures is incredibly entertaining and transports us to the era of the British Empire in a vivid way that is almost impossible to find in today's novels.