Blood of the Oak

The Edgar Award–winner’s colonial series continues as Scottish exile Duncan McCallum uncovers a loyalist conspiracy—“Historical mystery at its best” (Booklist, starred review).

The American Colonies, 1765. As the Stamp Act dissent marks the first organized resistance to English rule, someone is kidnapping and killing members of the Iroquois Nation. Asked by an elder to investigate, Scottish exile Duncan McCallum soon uncovers a network of secret runners supporting the nascent “committees of correspondence,” engaged in the political dissent fomenting across colonial borders. But as Duncan follows the trail further, it leads to his capture.

Thrown into slavery with the kidnapped runners, Duncan discovers a powerful conspiracy of highly placed English aristocrats bent on crushing all dissent. Inspired by an aged Native American slave and new African friends, Duncan decides not just to escape but to turn their own intrigue against the London lords.

A Publishers Weekly Best Book, the fourth entry in the Bone Rattler series moves ever closer to the beginning of the American Revolution. With a cast of characters that includes Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, the early Pennsylvania rebel James Smith, and Dr. Benjamin Rush, Blood of the Oak takes a fresh view on the birth of the new American nation.