Exquisite Folly — Jonathan Carriel

In the fall of 1765, New York City is roiling with fury at the impending enforcement of the Stamp Tax, which portends ruin to virtually all classes. There could not be a worse moment for the young, fetching-but none too bright-third wife of a wealthy merchant to be brutally stabbed to death in her own backyard. With some factions in the city calling for peaceful protest while others howl for armed defiance, her foolish jests against the radicals had aroused bitter indignation, widespread contempt, and the family's mortification. When the slogan of the Sons of Liberty is discovered near her corpse, supporters of the imperial prerogative are quick to assign blame.

Unexpectedly commissioned to seek out the truth, aspiring shipper Thomas Dordrecht's first duty is to his desperate employers, frantically working to put their ships to sea before the November first deadline. But when the tax goes into effect on that date, Dordrecht is hot in pursuit of the culprit . . . as the town erupts in a full-scale riot that nearly touched off the American Revolution ten years early.

“Exquisite Folly is terrific: a marvelous combination of suspense with a superb portrait of New York society.”

-Thomas Fleming, author of Liberty! The American Revolution