Reddit reviews Flashman: A Novel

As always, my suggestion is Flashman. There are many books spanning the 19th Century and focusing on a British Officer. Hilarious and very historical. Really brings it to life.

The Berlin Noir Trilogy is great. Raymond Chandler type private eye in Berlin before, during and after WW2

The Flashman Papers is a really funny satirical series about a cowardly, racist, drunken (etc, etc) Victorian English soldier

and Pillars of The Earth is a big epic novel about building a cathedral and the town around it. Super good, everybody loves that one. Ignore the lackluster TV miniseries.

You have to check out the Flashman series. They are great reads, full of fantastically researched historical fiction, but man do I hate Flashy. He's overly confident and treats women terribly. He's a drunk, a coward and a gambler. He sells out his brothers in arms to save his own skin. He's the worst type of human being, and yet, the other characters in the books think he's a hero because of his uncanny timing.

I have heard good things about Fraser's Flashman, but I have yet to read it myself.

The first of the series.