Sixth Mystery of the American Revolution from Eliot Pattison, THE KING'S BEAST

A few months ago, one of my Manhattan grandsons, this one age 11, mentioned to me that he was studying the Haudenosaunee. That moment set into perspective the stunning leap in two generations of the teaching of American History as a field. When I was his age, I knew Indians as the people who fought the Cowboys on the Western shows ... and could name a couple of East Coast tribes, sometimes with their colonized names.

But this youngster, seriously devoted to learning and experiencing the diversity around him and "behind" him, speaks the tribal name and has firm opinions about modern racism as well as the historic forms. I couldn't be more pleased -- for both my grandson and his teachers, as well as the world he perceives.

Part of the charm of historical fiction is the way it can swiftly teach readers, by immersing them in a world they enter emotionally as well as descriptively. Eliot Pattison's Tibet series, featuring Inspector Shan, began with an Edgar Award-winning title, The Skull Mantra, and probed the spiritual and religious background of Tibet at the same time as it fingered meticulously the Chinese occupation, adoption, and immigration into that landscape that was once a "Forbidden Kingdom" of mystic significance. And may still be.

With the end of that series, there is now room to focus intensely on Pattison's other growing series, the Bone Rattler books (named for its first title). Set in Colonial America, the series began with a striking premise: that a displaced Highlander (Highland Scot), exiled while mourning the death of his clan at British hands, might connect at soul-deep level with a Native American from a tribe that's been similarly destroyed, the Nipmuc, down to its last few members. So begins the difficult and rewarding friendship of Duncan McCallum and Conawago, in the uncertain landscape of a not-yet-formed nation of settlers, exiles, and the peoples who knew the land best and longest: its earliest known inhabitants, or, as they are called in Canada, its First Peoples.

THE KING'S BEAST opens in the Kentucky wilderness in the spring of 1769, with Duncan McCallum eagerly -- yet with some level of fear -- witnessing the excavation of skeletal remains of what modern readers will recognize as a mammoth, and later a sabertooth tiger. Duncan's on hand to make sure the fossilized bones reach the great Dr. Benjamin Franklin, a journey that only should extend as far as Philadelphia and amount to little more than being transport security for some scientific "curiosities."

But that plan goes quickly awry, with two major complicating factors: what the remains represent to the Seneca people at the "dig" site, and Dr. Franklin's deep intentions for the remains -- which in turn are seeing violent opposition from others on the new continent.

About a third of the way into THE KING'S BEAST, Duncan finds that Conawago is missing. The search for his friend and mentor becomes a rescue mission that whips Duncan across the ocean to London, England, and into an even more complex network of interacting political forces. The true stakes for Duncan involve his friend's safety. But as he comes to grips with the real Dr. Benjamin Franklin, he also has to confront what's emerging politically from the land that's become his own—the land that in a few short years will declare its independence.

Readers of the series know that Duncan is a trained medical doctor who has become, in his new land, a forensics resource and thus a "speaker for the dead." Pattison uses this skill to engage Duncan in sorting out crimes, especially murders, and that is certainly the case in this sixth title in the Bone Rattler series. But this hefty volume (more than 400 pages) also represents Pattison's effort to portray the forces leading toward Revolution, and their counterforces. Add to this his infusions of the sciences of that time and the economic forces in play, plus the decision to set the larger part of the book in England, and there's a potent load of information in the pages. At times, inevitably, it drags at the pace and passions of the story. With that in mind, here is one of the last American scenes unfolding:

Duncan weighed the words. "The bones are important, or the killers would not have tried to steal them on the Ohio. But," he added with a nod, "we should sleep in shifts, switching when the ship bell rings the change in watch," he suggested. He touched a pocket of his waistcoat, which held a slip of paper that he had been given in Philadelphia. He had long since memorized the address on it. 7 CRAVEN STREET. He prayed the powerful Dr. Franklin could protect them once they reached London.

Ishmael noticed Duncan's motion. He well knew what was in the pocket. "We have nothing to fear," he declared with a hollow smile. "We'll soon have the wizard of lightning on our side."

But their rescue mission involves entering an insane asylum that seems designed to torture, maim, and further demonize its inhabitants, and Franklin may not be as effective as hoped for.

Taking Duncan and his Nipmuc friend Ishmael out of the New World and into a sinister urbanity increases an unfortunate tendency for Duncan to react to forces, rather than to make choices. Not until the final scenes does he undertake independent action. Oddly, this gives the book some of the feel of a "cozy mystery" in which the protagonist flails against situations and tries repeatedly to suspect various criminal possibilities, until finally stumbling against the most dangerous person and having to exert physical and mental stamina to escape life-threatening peril .... and hence at the same time solving the crime in play.

The book's also clearly setting up for the next titles in this series. Another historical mystery author, James Benn, has moved his investigator Billy Boyle slowly through the years of World War II, and this fall will see the 15th in that series. Pattison's increments of historic time headed toward the American Revolution may likewise last for many more Bone Rattler books, and I look forward to them, even as my heart, as a willing reader, clenches to think of the vulnerability of Conawago and the fate of the tribes, in what lies ahead.

[Published by Counterpoint, available April 7.]

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. (But if you're specifically looking for earlier Eliot Pattison reviews, click here as a shortcut.)