The Sword & the Scabbard: Thieves and Thugs and the Bloody Massacre in Boston
Nicholas Gray and Maggie Magowan run the Sword and Scabbard, a tavern in Boston’s North End, in Allen Woods’ engrossing novel dramatizing the tensions leading up the infamous “Boston Massacre.” Both Nicholas and Maggie are trying to start new lives for themselves, breaking from the violence and dark secrets of their separate pasts, but those pasts keep trying to ensnare them again. Woods brings pre-Revolution Boston to life in all its dangerous complexity, from the insolent Redcoats who patrol the city’s streets to rabble-rousing political groups like the Sons of Liberty to the arrogant Tory politicians who run Boston with a combination of cluelessness and greed.
Nicholas and Maggie are very appealing protagonists, believably flawed yet heroic, and Woods does a realistic job of transforming his research about colonial Boston into a fast-paced and gripping story – with a nicely believable relationship-story growing at the heart of it.
Recommended.
