Savage Liberty — Eliot Pattison

Following a tortuous path of sabotage and treason, exiled Scotsman Duncan McCallum must survive his enemies long enough to glimpse the emergence of the American Revolution in this thrilling Publishers Weekly Best Mystery of the Year.

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 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 outlawed 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.