Bone Rattler: A Mystery of Colonial America (The Bone Rattler Series Book 1)

The Edgar Award winner’s acclaimed historical mystery series is “ The Last of the Mohicans meets Braveheart , with a curious dash of CSI ” ( Entertainment Weekly ). Aboard a convict ship, Scottish Highlander Duncan McCallum is bound for colonial New York—and the bloody maw of the French and Indian War. Aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, Duncan McCallum witnesses a series of murders and apparent suicides among his fellow Scottish prisoners. A strange trail of clues leads Duncan into the New World and eventually thrusts him into the French and Indian War. Duncan is indentured to the British Lord Ramsey, whose estate in the uncharted New York woodlands is a Heart of Darkness where multiple warring factions are engaged in physical, psychological, and spiritual battle. Exploring a frontier world shrouded in danger and defying death in a wilderness populated by European settlers, Indian shamans, and mysterious scalping parties, Duncan, the exiled chief of his near–extinct Scottish clan, finds that sometimes justice cannot be reached unless the cultures and spirits of those involved are appeased. In a novel rich in historical detail, acclaimed author Eliot Pattison reconsiders the founding of America and explores how disenfranchised people of any age and place struggle to find justice, how conflicting cultures can be reconciled through compassion and tolerance, and ultimately how the natural world has its own morality. Aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, Duncan McCallum witnesses a series of murders and seeming suicides among his fellow Scottish prisoners that thrusts him into a bloody maw of the French and Indian War. As the only man aboard with any medical training, Duncan is ordered to assemble evidence to hold another prisoner accountable for the deaths - or face punishment that will mean his own death. His conclusions suggest tht the wave of violence is somehow linked to the "savages" of the American wilderness. Duncan's suspicions that the prison company is to be sacrificed in the war seem to be confirmed when he learns that they are all indentured to Lord Ramsey's estate in the uncharted New York woodlands, a Heart of Darkness where mutiple warring fractions are engaged in a physical, psychological, and spiritual battle. Following a strange trail of clues that seem half Iroquois and half Highland Scot, mesmerized by the Lord Ramsey's beautiful daughter, and frequently defying death in a dangerous wilderness populated by grizzled European settlers, mysterious scalping parties, and Indian sorcerers, Duncan McCallum, exiled chief of his near-extinct clan, finds the source of all evil at the site of an Indian massacre In a novel rich in historical detail, acclaimed author Eliot Pattison reconsiders the founding of America and explores how disenfranchised people of any age and place struggle to find justice, how conflicting cultures can be reconciled through compassion and tolerance, and ultimately how the natural world has its own morality. Aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, protagonist Duncan McCallum witnesses a series of murders and apparent suicides among his fellow Scottish prisoners. A strange trail of clues leads Duncan into the New World and eventually thrusts him into the bloody maw of the French and Indian War. Duncan is indentured to the British Lord Ramsey, whose estate in the uncharted New York woodlands is a Heart of Darkness where multiple warring factions are engaged in physical, psychological, and spiritual battle. >Exploring a frontier world shrouded in danger and defying death in a wilderness populated by European settlers, Indian shamans, and mysterious scalping parties, Duncan, the exiled chief of his near–extinct Scottish clan, finds that sometimes justice cannot be reached unless the cultures and spirits of those involved are appeased. From Edgar Awardwinning author Eliot Pattison comes a compelling, multilayered novel rich in historical detail. Aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, Duncan McCallum witnesses a series of murders and apparent suicides among fellow Scottish prisoners. A strange trail of clues leads Duncan into the bloody maw of the French and Indian War