Bone RattlerAboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, exiled clan chief Duncan McCallum witnesses a bizarre series of murders and suicides among his fellow Highland Scot prisoners. Compelled by the masters of his prison company to resolve the crimes while remaining a prisoner, Duncan soon makes a fearful discovery: the violence on board is somehow linked to the savages of the American wilderness. Realizing that more Scots will die if he cannot find answers, he embarks on a trail in the New York colony that thrusts him into the bloody maw of the French and Indian War. Haunted by guilt over the plight of his fellow Highlanders, terrified by the savages who seem to stalk him, Duncan must face down the tyrannical Lord Ramsey, whose frontier estate has become a heart of darkness where British soldiers, rogue Scots, French raiders, and Huron and Iroquois warriors engage in physical, psychological, and spiritual battle. Encountering more murders at the edge of the frontier, Duncan is mesmerized by Lord Ramsey's beautiful daughter whose forbidden knowledge of "heathen" ways becomes a mystery as great as the killings themselves. Finally Duncan plunges into the wilderness alone, fleeing Indians and British who want him dead, knowing he and his friends will never survive unless he can discover the links between the army, renegade Scots, and Indian priests that are driving the violence. |
