Dubious Allegiance
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Authors: Don Gutteridge
A
utumn 1837: the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada are on the eve of open revolt. Lieutenant Marc Edwards has been sent with a force of British soldiers to subdue the increasingly hostile French rebels. But as the smoke from the battle clears and political pressures build, Marc begins to question whether the sacrifices he has made in the name of Crown and country have been worth the cost.
On his return trip to Toronto, Marc is accompanied by a group of seemingly innocent civilians. But as tensions in the provinces escalate and personal grievances within the group arise, it becomes clear that not everyone Marc is traveling with is who he appears to be. Soon, mysterious death threats are issued and Marc finds himself the target of an unknown assassin. And when a member of the group is found murdered in the woods, Marc realizes that he may have more than one killer to worry about.
“One of Gutteridge's giftsâothers include swift plotting and blessed witâis to lure us into a world of smugness, treachery, crime, despair, and, of course, murder, through fresh, outsider eyes, so that as Edwards discovers the complexities, subtleties and brutalities of Upper Canada, so do we.”
âJoan Barfoot on
Turncoat
in
The London Free Press
DON GUTTERIDGE
taught English at the Faculty of Education, University of Western Ontario, before starting the Marc Edwards mystery series.
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Turncoat
Solemn Vows
Vital Secrets
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Touchstone
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Don Gutteridge
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Touchstone trade paper edition July 2012
TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
ISBN 978-1-4391-6372-6
ISBN 978-1-4391-7269-8 (ebook)
For Jean McKay, author and friend
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Jan Walter, my editor for this edition, for her insights and tactful suggestions. Thanks also to my dedicated agent, Beverley Slopen, who has been a guiding force behind this series from the outset, and to Alison Clarke and Kevin Hanson of Simon & Schuster, for their continuing faith in the Marc Edwards mysteries.
Dubious Allegiance
is wholly a work of fiction, but the encounters between the rebels and loyalist forces during the rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada are based on the historical record, and the political and societal tensions that fomented the uprisings and fuelled their tragic aftermathâwhile fictionally represented hereâare nonetheless true to the spirit of those difficult times. Particular actions and characterizations attributed to actual historical personages like Charles Gore, Allan MacNab, and Francis Bond Head are fictitious. All other characters are the invention of the author, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. My rendition of the raids on St. Denis and the death of Captain Weir were materially aided by Joseph Schull's
Rebellion: The
Rising in French Canada, 1837
. The seriocomic clash between Mackenzie's “army” and Sheriff Jarvis's pickets on Yonge Street is vividly recounted in Edwin C. Guillet's
The Lives and
Times of the Patriots: An Account of the Rebellion in Upper Canada, 1837â38
. Also, in its Appendix of Select Documents can be found a contemporary description of the hanging of Peter Matthews and Samuel Lount. I have taken some imaginative liberties with it, including moving the date up from April to January 1838. In general, though, I have endeavoured throughout to convey the tenor of the period as faithfully as possible.