Dimensions
129 x 198 x 16mm
When Captain Buck Flashman sees the black boxer catch a fly in mid-flight he realises that he is in the presence of speed such as the prize ring has never seen. Tom Molineaux may be crude and untutored, but if Mad Buck knows anything (and like his notorious son, the archcad Harry Flashman, he has an unerring eye for the main chance), this ex-slave from America is a champion in the making, on whose broad shoulders the ambitious captain can climb to sporting and social fame.
Thus the Black Ajax is shaped into the wonder of the fancy and toast of the town. A national celebrity, simple Tom is carried on a popular tide of sporting fever towards his great dream: to fight the invincible, undefeated champion of England, Tom Cribb.
Told in a series of superbly individual voices, 'Black Ajax' creates a magnificent picture of Regency England and a portrait of a flawed hero who surmounted the barriers of ignorance, poverty and race hatred to bring to the prize ring a lustre it had never known before and may never again.
