Patrick Mercer | Contributors to Slightly Foxed literary review magazine

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Patrick Mercer has been a regular soldier and a BBC correspondent, and has written three novels. He is now the MP for Newark.

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For entries in multiple issues of the quarterly, the occurrences are separated by semi-colons.

articles by, [33] 50; [38] 30

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The Making of Flashman

Patrick Mercer on George MacDonald Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here

I was brought up on a diet of George MacDonald Fraser’s anti-hero Flashman as he roistered and rogered his way around the Empire, and I reread many of the books while serving in Northern Ireland. But it was only later that I found out why so many of the details in the books rang true. Fraser had himself experienced war in all its facets.

Mastering the Mutiny

Patrick Mercer on John Masters, Nightrunners of Bengal

When John Masters’ Nightrunners of Bengal was first published in 1951, John Raymond in the Sunday Times described it as ‘the best historical novel about the Indian Mutiny that I have ever read’. In my view he’s right, although the power of the writing makes the subject matter almost irrelevant. As it is, the author has chosen one of the most chaotic and brutal episodes in the history of the British Empire in which to set his story – and he more than does it justice. It’s one of those novels that, once picked up, is almost impossible to put down. I’ve reread it many times and it still leaves me in a cold sweat of fear. It’s an old-fashioned book, written in an old-fashioned way, and it expresses old-fashioned values.

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