Inspired by July 4, a Salute to Colonial Sleuths

On Independence Day, I began to think about the historical setting of the Founding Fathers , and I realized that I had never read a mystery set in the colonial period. Curious, I began to look for mysteries set during the American Revolutuion, and I found a few that intrigued. For example, there is the Tim Euston series by Roddy Thorleifson, starting with Tim Curious: A Murder Mystery Set in the American Revolution, in which 1777's colonial sleuth and patriot Tim Euston sets out to find the killer of the only witness who can clear his name of a false accusation of robbery and to prove the innocence of the man wrongfully convicted for that witness's murder. On the distaff side of the Revolution, there is Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Murder by Karen Swee, about a 1777 tavern mistress who must solve a puzzle involving spies and traitors to find the killer of an overnight guest. Meanwhile, the female protagonist in Suzanne Adair's Paper Woman, frustrated by the disinterest and suspicion of the occupying British, is drawn into dangerous international espionage in 1780 Georgia as she sets out to solve the murder of her outspoken patriot father, the town printer, who has been killed along with one of his associates and a Spanish assassin. Eliot Pattison introduces readers to the conflicting cultures and injustices of the period leading up to revolution in his Bone Rattler series, starting appropriately with Bone Rattler. Protagonist Duncan McCallum, bound for the New World on a British convict ship in 1750, witnesses a series of murders and apparent suicides among his fellow Scottish prisoners. Determined to follow a trail of clues to justice even while indentured to a British lord on an estate in the New York wilderness, Duncan is soon caught up in the French and Indian War and its factions' physical, psychological, and spiritual battle. You may find it even more satisfying to go beyond fiction to unravel the factual mysteries and fascinating characters and motives behind of our nation's birth. In that case check these 100 top books about the American Revolution: https://allthingsliberty.com/2017/03/100-best-american-revolution-books-time/