Bone Rattler

By Eliot Pattison

Aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, Duncan McCallum witnesses a series of murders and apparent suicides among his fellow Scottish prisoners. A strange trail of clues leads Duncan into the New World and eventually thrusts him into the bloody maw of the French and Indian War.

Exploring a frontier world shrouded in danger and defying death in a wilderness populated by European settlers, Indian shamans, and mysterious scalping parties, Duncan, the exiled chief of his near-extinct Scottish clan, finds that sometimes justice cannot be reached unless the cultures and spirits of those involved are appeased.

Bone Rattler is a powerful historical mystery set against a backdrop of culture clashes, greed, deceit and murder as seen through the eyes of an honest Scot swept up in both the wonder and heartbreak of early colonial America.

ELIOT PATTISON is the author of The Skull Mantra, winner of the Edgar Award and finalist for the Gold Dagger, Water Touching Stone, and Bone Mountain. Pattison resides in rural Pennsylvania with his wife, three children, two horses, and two dogs on a colonial-era farm.