Black Ajax

When Captain Buck Flashman sees the black boxer catch a fly in mid-flight he realizes 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, this ex-slave is a Champion in the making. Under his ambitious patronage, the ‘Black Ajax’ is carried on a popular tide of sporting fever to his great dream: to fight the invincible, undefeated Champion of England, the great Tom Cribb.

Told through funny, colourful voices, this novel paints a portrait of a flawed hero who surmounted the barriers of ignorance, poverty and racial hatred to bring the prize ring a lustre it had never known before, and may never again.