BROCKS AGENT

It’s the eve of the War of 1812.

Thomas Jefferson declares that it’s a “mere matter of marching” for the United States to seize Upper Canada!

 Jonathan Westlake, a young man ready to make his mark, returns home to York [now Toronto] from a successful fur trading expedition. Intervening in a scuffle to save a young woman’s life, he appears to have killed her stepfather. To escape arrest for murder, Westlake is now forced to join the British Army and pose as a fur trader while on a secret mission for Major General Isaac Brock.

In a frantic search for the girl he rescued, down Georgian Bay to Fort Detroit, Westlake discovers treachery in his own family circle. His friends, a French Canadian named Lapointe and a Shawnee native called Paxinos, will remain loyal to him in a battle that may cost all of them their lives.

As nations and men struggle for military supremacy in North America, the principal characters fight to the death over love, independence, and a fortune in furs.

 

“In Brock’s Agent, Tom Taylor writes with a passion, power, and pace that will leave you breathless and thirsty for more. A born storyteller, Taylor weaves a gripping yarn with the very strands of our own history.” — Terry Fallis, winner of Canada Reads and the Stephen Leacock Award for The Best Laid Plans and author of The High Road.

 

 

BROCKS RAILROAD

Is an escaped slave truly free, waking each morning seething with hatred for a former oppressor? If not, then what is freedom and how does one attain it?

August 23, 1812

 Young Ensign Jonathan Westlake sails on the schooner Chippewa toward Fort Erie at the mouth of the mighty Niagara River, escorting Mary Collins for a visit home to meet his parents. But Westlake’s leave is suddenly cancelled and Mary must be left behind. British General Isaac Brock orders him to Virginia to rescue a slave named Alexander the Great, a former sergeant in the King’s Army, who will lead the newly formed Company of Coloured Men.

When Westlake falls in love with a beautiful American woman, he begins a quest for his own understanding of freedom while leading his party against pursing slave catchers, hostile natives, and even the U.S. army.  In a race for their lives to escape the hunters, he searches for the location of three secret abolitionists, conductors on the new “underground railroad.”

Then, on the cool morning of October 13, 1812, the hunted become the hunters, as all the opposing forces collide in the legendary Battle of Queenston Heights. And Westlake learns that the price of freedom is higher than he ever imagined.

 

“Taylor paints an unforgettable picture of the War of 1812 in all its glory. With an appealing hero, Jonathan Westlake, and a dynamic legend, Isaac Brock, this is rip-roaring storytelling at its best.” Jill Downie award winning historical fiction novelist and author of the Moretti/Falla mystery series.