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Book Summary and Reviews of The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss

The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss

The Whiskey Rebels

A Novel

by David Liss

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Sep 2008, 544 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Ethan Saunders, once among General Washington’s most valued spies, now lives in disgrace, haunting the taverns of Philadelphia. An accusation of treason has long since cost him his reputation and his beloved fiancée, Cynthia Pearson, but at his most desperate moment he is recruited for an unlikely task – finding Cynthia’s missing husband. To help her, Saunders must serve his old enemy, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, who is engaged in a bitter power struggle with political rival Thomas Jefferson over the fragile young nation’s first real financial institution: the Bank of the United States.

Meanwhile, Joan Maycott is a young woman married to another Revolutionary War veteran. With the new states unable to support their ex-soldiers, the Maycotts make a desperate gamble: trade the chance of future payment for the hope of a better life on the western Pennsylvania frontier. There, amid hardship and deprivation, they find unlikely friendship and a chance for prosperity with a new method of distilling whiskey. But on an isolated frontier, whiskey is more than a drink; it is currency and power, and the Maycotts’ success attracts the brutal attention of men in Hamilton’s orbit, men who threaten to destroy all Joan holds dear.

As their causes intertwine, Joan and Saunders – both patriots in their own way – find themselves on opposing sides of a daring scheme that will forever change their lives and their new country.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"The courageous Ethan is a likable rogue." - Publishers Weekly.

"Liss portrays post-Revolutionary Philadelphia and New York more effectively than he does the western Pennsylvania frontier, where the villains are somewhat cartoonish, but this detracts only slightly from a thoroughly enjoyable novel." - Library Journal.

"Uneven, sometimes risibly overstuffed narrative that's nevertheless compulsively readable." - Kirkus Reviews.

This information about The Whiskey Rebels was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

David Liss

David Liss is the author of A Spectacle of Corruption, The Coffee Trader, and A Conspiracy of Paper, winner of the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel, as well as The Ethical Assassin. He lives in San Antonio with his wife and children.

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