The 89-year-old narrator and chief character in the novel, "Flashy" resumes his memoirs where "Flash for Freedom!" leaves off. He has completed undercover service in India during the Sepoy Mutiny and is greatly looking forward to returning to England, his beautiful wife Elspeth, and the reception of a knighthood. He must be caught in nothing dishonorable lest he lose the distinction.
Having been caught in the act with Lady Plunkett while still in Calcutta, Flashy hastens to South Africa, where his old nemesis, John Charity Spring, sees him and plots to catch him molesting his beautiful daughter, Miranda. Flashy cannot, of course, resist her flirting, narrowly avoids being caught in the act, and is shipped off to Baltimore, MD, as revenge for his part in getting Spring shanghaied to South Africa ten years earlier. Flashy is still wanted up and down the Mississippi River for various felonies under various aliases: Beauchamp Millward Comber, Starnberg, Prescott, Arnold, and Howard.