SPY IN OLD DETROIT

The value of this historical adventure lies in the perceptive picture of the internal emotional struggles that went on as the French reluctantly released controls to the English and saw their friends, the Indians, mishandled -- and in turn resentful, embittered. The setting is the fort in old Detroit, just as Pontiac's War blazed into activity. And the story revolves around two French Canadian youths, Philippe, 20, a voyageur and more Indian than French, and Paul, who had friends in both camps -- and whose anger at the massacre of his English comrade forced him to become a spy for the English commandant. As he shuttled from the fort to the forest and back, it seems implausible that he survived. But the tensions of the fort- the drawn issues among the French, the English and the Indians seem very real. This fills a gap for this area and period.