A Novel
by David Liss
Ethan Saunders, once among General Washingtons 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 Cynthias 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 nations 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 Hamiltons 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.
"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.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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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