Siege of Khartoum

Plenty of train journeys this week because of the weather that enabled me to finish the latest John Wilcox novel, Siege of Khartoum.

This is in the Simon Fonthill series. Fonthill is an unusual Victorian character who manages to be at most of the late nineteenth century colonial campaigns, as all good heroes are of course. Unusual because the author has given his hero plenty of 21st Century values. Respecting the role of women, natives etc. If a bit incongruous it makes easier reading for a modern audience.

So here he is trying to reach Gordon in Khartoum before the Mahdi closes in. He gets captured and is rescued by his fiance and a Sudanese warrior, who are the real heroes of the book. Not quite the Four Feathers, and to put it mildly stretching credibility, but a good read none the less. 

It was all a bit predictable but saved by Wilcox's pacy style. As one reviewer put it "Boy's Own stuff".

I sold my 15mm Dervish and British armies earlier this year so I wasn't tempted back to the period with this book. Mind you the Perry's do some very nice 28mm .............