The Reavers [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

George MacDonald Fraser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 22, 2008

After twelve gloriously scandalous Flashman novels, the incomparable George MacDonald Fraser gives us a totally hilarious tale of derring-do from a different era.

It’s the turn of the seventeenth century (sort of), we’re in the wild Borders of Scotland, and a casket of jewels, an accidental murder, an estate at risk and a plot to overthrow the king are the order of the day. The irresistible and feisty Lady Godiva Dacre and her “chocolate-box pretty” companion Mistress Kylie Delishe find themselves stranded on a desolate road as highway robbers threaten their lives and possessions. Seemingly out of nowhere, the dashing Bonny Gilderoy (think Johnny Depp on a horse) single-handedly defeats the villains, but not before stealing Lady Godiva’s treasured jewels—along with her heart.

After making it safely to their destination, Godiva and Kylie find themselves thrown back together with that charming scoundrel Gilderoy. A mysterious man named Archie Noble comes to their aid and also makes a play for Godiva’s affections. Despite preposterous alliances and uproarious complications of the heart, they must rely on one another as secret identities are revealed and a perilous coup endangers the Scottish throne. It is through equally daring feats of courage and outlandish costumes that our heroes wade through salacious nightlife, confront wizards and witches and endure terrifying and ridiculous odds to preserve national pride and resolve the love triangles that threaten national security.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The late author of the beloved Flashman Papers (Flashman on the March, etc.) offers a 16th-century tale of swordplay and gleefully anachronistic wordplay along the Scottish borderlands. Fraser does a Highland fling with the English language as he unfolds a tortuous and torturous tale of four heroes: Gilderoy, dashing Scottish highwayman; Archie Noble, gallant Englishman and proud double-nought operative, licensed to slay; and a beauteous pair of ladies, the noble Lady Godiva Dacre and her randy companion, Kylie. Together the four must stop a Spanish plot to kidnap and replace James VI of Scotland with an impostor who will then gain the English throne on the death of Queen Elizabeth. They must overcome wizards, witches, warlocks and sundry other hazards while Archie and Gilderoy vie for Godiva's fickle affections. Readers must stay alert to keep up with the author's constant verbal sallies. Fraser died on January 2, 2008. (Apr.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* In the late Fraser’s rollicking Elizabethan-era swan song, hero Archie Noble (a Tudor James Bond–Steve McQueen charmer), subhero Gilderoy (a Scotch highwayman with swoon-inducing lips), and heroine Lady Godiva Dacre (“a breathtaking mix of Marlene above the neck and Jane Russell below”) stumble upon a fiendish Spanish plot to install an impostor James VI to the throne. Alongside a supporting cast of borderland rogues, the heroes engage in a headlong rush of bursting bodices, clattering rapier duels, and any number of intrigues, exploits, and mischief, all amply endowed with Fraser’s elite sense of humor, crack comic timing, and spot-on imitations of haughty period dialect and rakish accents. Akin to Fraser’s stand-alone adventure The Pyrates (1983), this is a wild and woolly departure from his popular historical satires starring Harry Flashman, and he dutifully warns readers that “this book is nonsense. It is meant to be.” What it all amounts to is a genre unto itself, the ahistoric historical costume drama, maybe, or perhaps the outlandishly anachronistic swashbuckler. Whatever you want to call it, it is the literary equivalent of a joyous celebration of old-fashioned, flat-out, high-flying, over-the-top tales of derring-do and ribald romancing. It’s a hell of a ride, but don’t expect it to make a whole lot of sense. If you do, you’ve missed the point and likely missed the sheer exuberance in storytelling on display here. --Ian Chipman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (April 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307268101
• ISBN-13: 978-0307268105
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.1 x 8.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #574,050 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny, but not his best, November 29, 2007

By 

Richard Quarles "Rich Quarles" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Reavers (Hardcover)

The Reavers is very much in the style of Fraser's "Pyrates" but, in my opinion, not as successful. For those of you more familiar with the Flashman books, both The Reavers and Pyrates are more over-the-top, more fantastic, and the narrator is constantly interjecting with a wink and a nudge.

Pyrates is probably my all-time favorite Fraser novel-- but The Reavers felt more like a rehash. Even so, I definitely enjoyed it.

If you haven't read Pyrates yet, I'd recommend reading it instead.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Imagine an Explosion in the Library . . ., June 23, 2009

By 

T. Berner (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Reavers (Paperback)

. . . and a volume of SJ Perelman smashes through the collected works of Sir Walter Scott and takes a corner off a Harry Potter tome before plunging into a history of Hollywood swashbucklers. That will give you a flavor of the late great George MacDonald Fraser's last work.

Fraser wrote five kinds of books in his illustrious career. There were his peerless Flashman books, of course. There were his solid histories - A Hollywood History of the World remains the best and most engaging study of the subject matter ever written. There were his two volumes of memoirs - Quartered Safe Out Here is easily one of the five best firsthand accounts of World War II, a classic which should be on every shelf of military history for the next millenium. There was Fraser's other fiction, ranging from the comic McAuslan novels to the dark and brooding Candlemass Road. Then there were his two nonsense novels: Pyrates and this, his valedictory novel.

Personally, I've never cared for this sort of humor. It is too loose, too many word plays, no structure to hold on to. I've never seen the point of the Marx Brothers or Perelman. Nevertheless, this is a superior example of this sort of fiction and I found myself laughing out loud far more often than I ever had while watching Duck Soup or reading Westward Ho!

And as someone who read the first, newly published Flashman in high school, I have received a lifetime of enjoyment from the author. If as his last work, he chose to write a book which gave him the undoubted pleasure The Reavers gave him, then I say, bravo, Mr. Fraser.

Now if only his publisher can convince Fraser's daughter - a fine writer in her own right - to resume the Flashman novels, all will be well in the world. The literary world, at any rate.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Farcical Farewell, September 18, 2008

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Reavers (Hardcover)

Like most others who will pick up this final book from Fraser, I am a longtime devotee of his Flashman series. And the sheer pleasure of reading that series has driven me to seek out and read most of his other fiction and non-fiction over the years (including this book's ancestor, The Pyrates). Of these twenty or so books, this one is clearly the silliest of the lot, and anyone picking it up should be ready for a pretty heavy dose of wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

The book is essentially a farcical rewriting of his earlier novel, The Candlemass Road, complete with many of the same characters and situations. The story is set in the same 16th-century Scottish/English borderlands that Fraser wrote a history of under the title The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers. It concerns a Spanish plot to kidnap King James and replace him with an impostor (and if that sounds familiar, it's because Fraser used the device in Royal Flash). Seeking to foil this plot are an Elizabethan secret agent, a Scottish highwayman, a stunning English noblewoman, and her saucy sidekick.

If this sounds like a delightful historical thriller, well, be warned that Fraser wrote this one with his tongue even more firmly planted in cheek than usual. It brims with modern pop culture references, anachronisms, authorial asides, and over-the-top renderings of thick Scots dialect. None of these bothered me, but plenty of other readers seemed to find some or all of these elements annoying. However, in the preface, Fraser is pretty clear that the book was primarily written to amuse himself, so I'm willing to go along with the ride. Especially since it's the last we're likely to get from such a great storyteller. (Unless, that is, a literary executor manages to uncover one last packet of Flashman adventures....)

Ultimately, a pretty minor and self-derivative work from a very entertaining writer. If approached in the right frame of mind, it should provide a few hours of very light entertainment, and possibly spur the reader to check out some of the true history of the setting.