Picking up where Flashman For Freedom left off, our disreputable hero finds himself on a wagon train en route to San Francisco. In this grand detour (he hopes to escape to England), he meets Kit Carson, gets captured by Apaches and takes part in the California Gold Rush. Naturally, he's at the center of the Battle of Little Big Horn (where he may have inadvertently shot Custer). It's all very entertaining, shot through (pun intended) with period detail and meticulously researched. Fraser's impolitic use of Red Brutes and Redskins is decidedly sardonic.  (USW464, $15.00)