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This entry in the Casca series is the second part of a story set during the American War of Independence. Casca had been living in pre-revolutionary North American, where he fell foul of a rogue British officer. This drove him into the Revolutionary cause, where he came to Washington's attention and took part in the early battles around Boston, New York and at Trenton and Princeton. His personal problems also appeared to have been solved, with the girl rescued from the rogue British officer and taken to apparent safety with her mother in Philadelphia.
This book follows the course of the war from the spring after Princeton to the eventual American victory. We thus start with the British conquest of Philadelphia, where the girl and her new son fall back into the hands of the British officer. The two plots are then intertwined as Casca attempts to come to grips with his enemy, a rivalry that finally ends at Yorktown (not a spoiler - this is on the back cover).
One might thing that this makes the second novel something of a re-run of the first, but although our hero is faced with the same problems, his solution is different. This time military duties prevent a direct rescue attempt, so our hero attempts to come face to face with his enemy on the battlefield, an approach that allows Roberts to take us to some widely scattered battlefields. The final outcome of this plot is satisfactorily ambiguous, with the complexities of the situation taken into account.
The book is also available from the Casca Website
Author: Tony Roberts
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 177
Publisher: Americana Books
Year: 2012