Michael Dean (3)

This is my second attempt to post a review. The first attempt (lost in the ether net) was far superior.

This book examines --as with a microscope-- the events and machinations leading up to the first actual battle of the War for Independence. However, it is a fictionalized account more concerned with the good story than with verifiable facts. In the author's own words, "“where the demands of drama clash with accounts in the historical record, I have followed the demands of drama.”
Dramatic, it is. Michael Dean seems to have the inside track on many of the real people wrapped up in the actual events. He spends a great deal of time on the thoughts, motivations and minutia of Samuel Adams, Dr Thomas Young, Governor of MassachusettsThomas Pownell, his Lt Governor Thomas Hutchinson, British official (brother & rival of Pownell) John Powell, John Hancock, and others. We read little or nothing on other well known historical figures such as Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, Paul Revere, even George Washington. I would love to have seen an historian's educated guess as to the inner workings of those minds as well.… (mehr)

A storyfied version of the events leading up "the shot heard 'round the world." Taking place mostly in Boston and London, this novel touches events such as the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party, the building of the resistance, and the British refusal to consider their actions were driving the Americans to war. Now, this is a novel so the author is not bound to follow a historical course for his characters, but I think development the characters a little more -- better explaining the motivations how they got to the point of planning rebellion at the novel's outside, would have made this a much more compelling (and readable) story. I suppose one might consider that politicians of average skill imposing their will on average people of no great means or ability can nevertheless spark events that would drive the creation of a new nation - but the characters as presented are just too pedestrian see such a grandiose outcome to their actions.… (mehr)