A gloriously old-fashioned novel - stately in pace, thickly
textured, reticent yet romantic - about a stolidly old-fashioned
hero worthy of Owen Wister. . . or Gary Cooper. "Mr. American" is
Mark Franklin, a 35-ish mystery man who arrives in 1909 England
with a Mexican saddle, a pair of Remington pistols, and apparently
unlimited funds: he withdraws (UKP)50,000 in gold from American
Express in London, stashing it in a safety deposit box for a rainy
day; he hires a valet, for 24 hours only, to advise him on the
finest in clothes purchases; and when a chance encounter wins him a
night of love with musical-comedy charmer "Pip" Delys, he thanks
her with some pricey gems. But London is only a stop-over for
roots-seeking Franklin; he's on his way to take up squire-like
residence in the Norfolk village of Castle Lancing, where his
ancestors lived 300 years ago. And for a while it seems as if
Franklin (whose fortune comes from a silver strike) has indeed
found his real home: he stumbles into the good graces of crabby old
Edward VII, who's visiting a nearby estate; he slowly earns the
grumbling approval of the villagers; he comes out on top in a feud
with piggish Lord Lacy, a land-developer who tries to force
Franklin's old kinswoman out of her cottage; he acquires the
perfect valet in Boer War vet Thomas Samson; still better, he
acquires the love of Lady Peggy Clayton, a beauteous young
neighbor. And not even an ugly surfacing of Franklin's past can
ruin his future: when Kid Curry - an aging, ill outlaw with a
psychotic grudge - comes gunning for Franklin (who once hung around
with the Wild Bunch), unflappable Samson helps his master to kill
Curry (in self-defense) and bury the body. Within five years,
however, Franklin's new life will turn sour. Wife Peggy, a London
socialite uninterested in motherhood, is revealed first as a liar
(she tricks Franklin into funding arms for Ulster's Protestant
rebels), then as a blase adulteress. Franklin's honor suffers
further damage when his platonic chumship with Pip is
misinterpreted and when he's called as a witness at the shady trial
of two vandalizing suffragettes. And there's some tense
cat-and-mouse suspense with Scotland Yard when Kid Curry's skeleton
surfaces. So - in the novel's surprisingly touching last pages - a
disillusioned Franklin says his goodbyes to England. . . . Doesn't
sound like the ribald, tongue-in-cheek Fraser of the Flashman
series? Well, it's not - though Franklin's first run-ins with
hypocritical society are royally comic. And, in fact, the only
mood-breaking sequences here are cameo appearances by leering,
90-year-old Flashman himself. Everywhere else, happily, Fraser
plays this straight - and the result, though slower going than
customary in today's decade-hopping sagas, is unusually evocative
historical fiction: authentic in detail and dialogue, rounded with
full-blooded characters, and carried along with a steady, caring
sense of destination that's far more satisfying than the hectic
plotting of most period adventures. (Kirkus Reviews)
Repackaged to tie-in with hardback publication of 'The Reavers' and
to appeal to a new generation of George MacDonald Fraser fans, 'Mr
American' is a swashbuckling romp of a novel. Mark Franklin came
from the American West to Edwardian England with two long-barrelled
.44s in his baggage and a fortune in silver in the bank. Where he
had got it and what he was looking for no one could guess, although
they wondered - at Scotland Yard, in City offices, in the
glittering theatreland of the West End, in the highest circles of
Society (even King Edward was puzzled) and in the humble pub at
Castle Lancing. Tall dark and dangerous, soft spoken and alone,
with London at his feet and a dark shadow in his past, he was a
mystery to all of them, rustics and royalty, squires and
suffragettes, the women who loved him and the men who feared and
hated him. He came from a far frontier in another world, yet he was
by no means a stranger... even old General Flashman, who knew men
and mischief better than most, never guessed the whole truth about
"Mr American".
General
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