If you haven't read Fraser's Flashman series, it's a good bet. The Flashman books are "an accurate history lesson with the memoir of a drinking, whoring, raping, conniving coward. Yet, the results are both highly informative and extremely entertaining/funny."

That's from an Amazon review. I concur. The first in the series, Flashman, has our hero in the first Afghanistan war in the 1800's, so not only is it good, it's topical.

I've got "Flashman at The Charge" which sees our dubious hero in the Crimean War but haven't got around to picking up the others yet (short attention span). He's quite a character and the level of historical research rivals the Patrick O'Brien 'Jack Aubrey' series.