Fortunately help was at hand - Sir Harry Flashman, arch-cad, poltroon, amorist, and reluctant hero, fleeing first from Mexican bandits, rebels, and the French Foreign Legion, not to mention the relatives of an infatuated Austrian beauty, was in urgent need of somewhere to take cover - even if it meant a perilous secret mission in disguise to the court of a voluptuous African queen with a weakness for stalwart adventurers. Along the way were nightmarish castles, brigand lairs, battles, massacres, orgies, and the loveliest and most lethal women in Africa, testing to the limit the great bounder’s talents for knavery, amorous intrigue, and survival.