Ode to Harry Flashman

Westerners gathered in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s understood they were in Great Game territory. They understood it deep in fact, mainly because of the writing of a handful of superb Britons -- Peter Hopkirk, Fitzroy Maclean, and of course George MacDonald Fraser.

Fraser died yesterday, which brought me back to the influence he had on a generation of foreign correspondents based in Peshawar, Kabul and Islamabad.

In The Great Game, Hopkirk was unmatched in his grasp of the big picture, and Maclean's Eastern Approaches was a riveting, first-person account of sneaking into the Caucasus and Central Asia when it truly was perilous to do so.

But it was Fraser's Flashman that provided comic relief while delivering the authentic history. It's a belly-laugh-out-loud frolick through Afghanistan, starring the cad Harry Flashman. When new correspondents arrived in Peshawar, the first thing they were often advised to do was stop by Abdara Road and pick up a copy.

That helped to create a Flashman cult following. In all, Fraser turned out a dozen Flashman novels, taking his character into exploits ranging from the charge of the light brigade to the U.S. civil war.

Farewell George MacDonald Fraser, and thanks for the inspiration.