Forensics and Detection, 1768 Style, in SAVAGE LIBERTY from Eliot Pattison

Available this week, the newest "Mystery of Revolutionary America" is the fifth in Eliot Pattison's series that was originally called the Bone Rattler books, after the first title in it. An international attorney (still practicing) and master of three vastly different series with three entirely separate cultures -- the other two are Chinese-occupied Tibet, and a post-apocalyptic version of a nuclear frontier -- Pattison crafts an immersion experience of hardships, crime, investigation, and dramatic changes. And SAVAGE LIBERTY perches at a fierce point in history, as colonists with diverse background and motives began to realize that rejecting the British king's power over them could be possible.

Most compelling in Pattison's books are his wounded heroes: here, the Scottish medically trained Duncan McCallum, bound under a punitive indenture contract that prevents him from committing to the love of his life, Sarah Ramsey. Ramsey is herself an outrageous figure for the time, trying to craft a peaceable community of Judeo-Christians, frontier folk, and Native Americans at the edge of the East Coast's strip of "civilization." But by binding McCallum for long-ago "criminality" and a few recent misjudgments, Ramsey's father effectively prevents the couple from a balanced and equal relationship.

This is part of McCallum's motive for taking off into the wilderness in search of a rogue collaboration of British and Abenaki warmongers -- they've pushed his bonding further and put a bounty on his head. But as always in Pattison's books, the emotional depth comes with McCallum's identification with members of a threatened culture: in this case, the Native Americans being brutally evicted from their lands. One of the most moving scenes in the book involves McCallum witnessing a heartbreaking farewell to the trees and forest, by his Nipmuc friend and ally, Conawago. Pattison's strongly drawn parallel of the outlawed Scottish Highland clans and the Native American tribes provides McCallum with some of his passion for the Nipmuc and his allies. Yet, as in Pattison's Tibet series, it's the underlying spiritual commitment that most deeply connects these men.

McCallum's usual care in decision making goes off track in SAVAGE LIBERTY. With the unsettling of his belief in the king's right to rule the colonies also comes an unsettling of some of his loyalties and convictions. And his beloved isn't pleased, telling him, "Stealing muskets from the king! Bribing army guards. This is how you will prove yourself innocent of treason! I beg you, Duncan, leave this behind before it is too late."

But Duncan McCallum is forming a new commitment, to the Sons of Liberty, a group that's clearly fomenting revolution. It's troubling him:

He lay on a comforter beside Sarah's bed, listening to the slow, quiet breathing of Sarah and Will, recalling prior conversations in Boston. The arguments with the king would never come to violence, Hancock and Sam Adams always insisted. King George would soon recognize that the inhabitants of his most valuable colonies had to be given the same respect as Englishmen in the home country, and all would then rally around the monarch. But the terrible visions of the innkeeper's dying wife now visited him, vivid images of ill-trained colonists being massacred by British regulars, the massed bullets of their. Brown Besses mowing down farmers and shopkeepers like the blade of a bloody scythe. Whenever a colonist fell, an Abenaki materialized to rip away his scalp.

Pattison's choice of Abenaki for the most dangerous criminal in this book (in a revenge motif based on the massacre of the St. Francis group of the tribe) disturbed me, as it seemed a choice that could tar an entire group of people with a label of irrational and uncontained violence. I kept pausing to check details, finding that small parts that rubbed me wrong -- scalping, displays of scalps -- had ample historical backup, but still ill at ease. I also missed the more deliberate investigative direction of earlier titles in the series.

That said, Pattison does a masterful job of keeping his red herrings afloat and his competing rationales for crime and violence well sorted out. Most vitally, he illustrates the slow and irreversible turn from an angry but heartfelt loyalty to the monarch, toward the possibility of independence. I look forward to how he'll carry Duncan McCallum into the very forces of liberty in the next book of the series. And, of course, to how this deep-probing author will illustrate the ongoing death of tribal occupation of the new America. "Savage" liberty, indeed.

Publication is by Counterpoint, and the book's release date is May 22.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

America's Revolution Begins in Murder, in BLOOD OF THE OAK, Eliot Pattison

What kinds of oppression awaken a nation to action? When do struggles for survival become a force to light a revolution? No, I'm not talking about this year's Presidential campaign, but rather, the simmering, smoky, and definitely violent build-up to the American Revolution. In the fourth book of his Bone Rattler series, BLOOD OF THE OAK, Eliot Pattison's protagonist confronts those questions -- and the investigation of multiple murders.

Exiled and shorn of his family and clan, Duncan McCallum's path during the three earlier books has meant turning his medical training into the baby steps of a new forensic science. Technically he's still a runaway from government justice, living in the forests of Pennsylvania, far from the vicious man who claims to hold him within an indenture. But readers of the earlier books have seen Duncan transformed through learning the ways of the Algonquin Nation. His friend Conawago is an elder of the Nipmuc tride, and together the men have survived brutal attacks, rescued the well-meaning and innocent, and upheld the tribal rights and customs. Duncan has, in fact, joined a New World clan, and he's well aware of how fortunate he has been. Now in 1765, he even has a woman in his life, someone he trusts and respects and who is also working for justice and, dare we say it, peace.

That may be a lot to swallow for first-time readers of this series. If it sound like further than you can imagine stretching, don't read this one yet -- go to Bone Rattler, then Eye of the Raven, then Original Death. Follow along on this remarkable but step-by-step reasonable path that Pattison outlines.

But many first-time readers of the series will find instead that the quick pace, dramatic action, and fiercely honorable allies presented here make it easy to leap into Duncan's adventures right away. Remember how William Penn thought he was creating a "city of brotherly love" in Philadelphia? Duncan's beloved Sarah Ramsey makes a smaller version possible on the western frontier (yes, Pennsylvania edged the wilderness then), in her Edentown. And Duncan needs some of that peace and tranquillity for himself.

Especially now, because he has a mission from the Iroquois. Summoning him to use his skills, Adanahoe, an elderly woman who leads the spiritual side of the tribes, needs him to retrieve a holy item that's been stolen -- before the tribes lose their ability to survive in the new age.

Almost before Duncan can reach his heart's home, though, killings erupt around him -- and without time to consider, he's thrust out into the wilderness again, chasing murderers and trying to interpret cryptic clues that surround him.

Without our hindsight, Duncan has no idea that the colonists around him in 1765 have reached a boiling point. He's been out in the forest, after all. In the taverns, and the back rooms of powerful men, rebellion is brewing. War is on the table for consideration -- and Duncan takes far too long to grasp what's at stake.

But he sees clearly enough the folly of the settlers and city men, even the ones who think they are healers bringing their art to the natives, like the young Benjamin Rush, an associate of Ben Franklin's.

Duncan eyed the tied leather roll Rush had carried through his ordeal, now resting on the pile of logs beside the young scientist. Rush sighed but did not stop him as he unrolled it, exposing a row of silvery instruments, each in its own sewn pocket. Surgical knives, tweezers, a metal rule, a small bone saw, probes, long needles with silk thread, and a reed-thin stem of metal with a tiny mirror at its end ...

Duncan eyed the tools uneasily. "What exactly in God's name are you doing here, Rush?"

"Gathering evidence, of course. With doctors in Philadelphia paying three pounds a body, there's no end of cadavers there. But it's damnable hard to find a native specimen. ... I showed them my coin. I asked about the recently dead. They did not seem to understand. Only one spoke any English and that poorly. So I pulled out a surgical blade to help him understand. He asked what it was and I told him, very slowly, to help him grasp the word. Then he pulls out his war ax and shouts at me."

Duncan stared in mute astonishment. "You must have an angel hovering over you to have survived so long. ... You come from Philadelphia, where they pay bounties for Indian hair, you show him your coin, then display your blade, naming it your scalpel." Duncan repeated the word, slowly, the way Rush must have done. "Scalp-el."

The color left Rush's face. "Dear God! I didn't ... I never meant to suggest ... dear God!" he repeated.

Duncan stared at the forlorn man, wondering not for the first time how learned men could be so unwise in the ways of the world.

But this interlude is almost a gentle one, compared with what Duncan and his friends are headed toward, as Duncan's hunt for a murderous cabal puts him into the way of the most angry patriots along the New World's coast. Duncan has never dreamed that good, wise men would ever actually choose to defy the King -- and as he begins to realize how wrong he has been, lives of the people he loves are on the line. He will have to mesh his training in deduction and reason, with the canny opportunism he's learned from both of his "tribes," to have a chance at surviving.

The horrible conditions of slaveholding, of manipulative indentures, of women who have no real rights, and of invaders uprooting a land's people in order to seize wealth -- all of these align againtst Duncan in this volume.

A small caution for mystery readers: Although Duncan's forensics operate powerfully here, especially in the first half of BLOOD OF THE OAK, several major twists and his eventual fate depend more on his ability to choose the right alliances and sustain them. Thus, this is less a tale of investigation than of revelation and maturing.

His confusion was like a physical pain. He stared at the foreboding words [on a slip of paper inside a Bible], which kindled anew his grief for the young couple in the churchyard.

It made no sense that amidst the urgent, mysterious work these men were engaged in they would take the time to speak of Shakespeare, to memorize passages ... He shook his head in bewilderment.

Pattison's deep strength is in his gift of in-life autopsy of the human mind and soul. He lines up, chapter upon chapter, the forces that Duncan must face in a new way -- or lose himself in the process.

So, this one's a little less of a clue-based mystery, but instead a powerful book of transition: for Duncan, from naive to knowing; for his friends, from tribal loyalty to spiritual search; and for the settlers and their gatherings, from ruled colonies to something that dares to whisper: Independence.

There must be a sequel already in the works; I'm looking forward to watching Pattison carry this striking and passionate narrative into the explosions that will forge the American Revolution -- and Duncan McCallum's fate.

In or Near Vermont This Weekend? Come Meet Eliot Pattison!

Edgar Award-winning mystery author Eliot Pattison will again visit Kingdom Books for conversation about his research and writing, which range from Chinese-occupied Tibet (in his Inspector Shan series) to colonial America and Native Americans (the Bone Rattler series). We hope you can join us this Sunday Aug. 3 at 7 pm, to welcome Eliot back to Vermont and enjoy his insight and discoveries.

We'll have many of the Pattison books on hand (call Dave to reserve one if you like, at 802-751-8374), but no purchase is needed; it's your conversation we want!

Armies, Power, Murder, Manipulation: Eliot Pattison's New Bone Rattler Mystery, ORIGINAL DEATH

Is it true, as Lord Acton wrote in 1887, that "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"? If so, the many forces entering battle in Colonial America must have hosted a lot of corruption -- because each of them struggled wildly to seize power in the New World. The French, the British, the newly developed Colonists ... But what about the Native Americans?

In author Eliot Pattison's hands, the tribal forces of 1760 may demand an exception to the rule. Knowledgeable about their land and its seasons and weather, wise in the movements of animals and growth of plants around them, and carefully balanced against each other's tribes -- or clans, as Scottish exile Duncan McCallum sees them -- the tribes of the Iroquois federation want power over themselves. But not over the Europeans. Without that hunger for absolute power, they'll avoid the depths of corruption already sweeping through the military forces around them.

At least, it seems that way to Duncan, traveling north toward a village by Lake Champlain with his aging but gentle and wise friend Conawago, who may be the last of the Nipmucs. That's how others know this sage. Yet Duncan knows the contents of the letter Conawago has, the one that's pulling him north. It says there are two other Nipmucs alive, in a settlement of Christian Indians.

Heartbreak! The pair of travelers arrive to find a murdered settlement -- including Conawago's nephew -- and increasing evidence that robbery and more murder have spread among the Scottish forces working for the British. Duncan even discovers a roped and drowned clansman under the lake's waters: "Duncan could not bring himself to touch the body, but he gripped the wheel to study it wuth the more deliberate gaze of the doctor he had trained to be. ... The death had a slow, organized aspect to it."

This is the frame Pattison has used in Bone Rattler and Eye of the Raven to turn Duncan McCallum into a forensic expert and investigator. Skilled in "hearing the voices of the dead," McCallum's observations and experience add up to a hyper-awareness of the evil that people can do. Wouldn't it be nice to blame it all on the British, or at least on the French, reaching down with other Native allies -- especially the Huron -- to challenge the ownership of the rich lands of New England?

Pattison, who also writes a series that involves Tibetan Buddhist lamas in Chinese-occupied terrain, crafts a many-layered plot that hinges on evil being possible for anyone, no matter what their origin or "clan." Soon McCallum and Conawago find themselves chasing a tribal leader named The Revelator. And the Iroquois council puts an added burden on them, one that McCallum discovered and would have embraced anyway. They are to rescue a group of kidnapped children.

Turning the tables on classic "Indian Wars" tales of white settler children being kidnapped, Pattison instead reveals a daring plot that involves holding the young children of tribal leaders, for ultimate leverage. Then he winds McCallum in accusations from so many directions that it seems everyone is willing either to kill him or capture him (or both). As evidence of criminal activity gradually adds up so do the deaths of McCallum's friends and allies. Battle is about to begin, and it's unlikely that rescue of the children can take place in the midst of such death and destruction: that absolute form of corruption of life, after all.

Parallel to his Inspector Shan/Tibet series, Pattison's Bone Rattler books dare to compare forms of spiritual wisdom and pathways, looking not just at evil (crime fiction, after all!) but at the nature of good. This third Bone Rattler "mystery of Colonial America" raises intriguing questions and insight into the clash of cultures in the New World -- even as it sets up McCallum and Conawago to risk everything for the chance to keep the Native tribal cultures viable for a generation longer.

A good read -- and one that's left me thoughtful and ready for a long, long walk in the forest.

MEET ELIOT PATTISON at Kingdom Books on Sunday July 28 at 7 pm; or if you can't be here, reserve a book or two, signed, and we'll ship them to you the next day. Also featured in this event is Pattison's newest book in his Inspector Shan series (see yesterday's review). We'll have copies of both of his newest books -- Mandarin Gate and Original Death -- but in limited numbers, so please contact us (802-751-8374 and KingdomBks at gmail.com) if you'd like to reserve copies of these or other Pattison mysteries for signature and purchase.