Savage liberty - Eliot Pattison

A Publishers Weekly Best Mystery of the Year

"This is historical writing at its best, with plenty of action and suspense. It's difficult to put down." -Historical Novel Society

When a ship arriving from London explodes in Boston Harbor, both the peace of the colonial city and Duncan McCallum's life are shattered. Summoned by John Hancock to a beach awash with the bodies of the victims, Duncan discovers that the ship was sabotaged. Hancock refuses to let him take his evidence to the authorities, for this is 1768 and relations with the government are sour. Fearing that the intrigues of Hancock and the Sons of Liberty might set the colonies ablaze, Duncan relentlessly pursues the truth, only to be falsely charged with treason and murder. With the help of Ethan Allen, aged natives, and outlaws Jesuits, he survives scalp hunters, imprisonment, and his own spiritual crisis, only to realize he cannot resolve the terrible crimes until he first understands the emerging truths about freedom in the American colonies.