Mr American: George MacDonald Fraser

No-one knew who Mark Franklin was when he disembarked at Liverpool in 1909, with a copy of Shakespeare's complete works, a Mexican saddle and a pair of long barreled Remingtons in his luggage. He was just another American, tall and quietly spoken and alone. No-one knew what he was looking for although they wondered - in City offices, at Scotland Yard, in the West End's glittering theatreland, in the highest circles of Society and in the humble bar parlour of the little pub at Castle Lancing. To rustics and royals, squires and suffragettes, the women who loved him and the men who hated and feared him, he was a disturbing enigma. And even old General Flashman, who could see further than most, never guessed the whole truth.