Captain Vinegar's Commission

It's 1842, and England, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, seems uncomfortably confining to impecunious and romantic Tresham Pitcher. He would go to India to seek his fortune and adventure, but how to get there? He hasn't the money. School chum Roland Farr suggests that Tresham gull a book publisher into underwriting the expedition by posing as one of those ""captains'' who travel about the world with a sword and a battered carpetbag, having just come from leading a troop of Lesghians against the Cossacks, or Cossacks against the Lesghians. As ``Captain Vinegar,'' Tresham fools the publisher and sets off, but the character of the captain invades his personality more and more, to the point that he loses track of reality. He has ``adventures'' to be sure, but they're mostly Quixote-like, in his own head. Glazebrook's latest novel (after Byzantine Honeymoon) is an entertaining spoof of the picaresque genre, though somewhat limited in its appeal. (October)