THE FLAMES OF TIME

A long and extensively-detailed historical novel, robust and vivid, with a set of bawdy, intense characters backgrounded in Florida at the turn of the 19th century, chafing and rebellious under a weak colonial rule. The story interest centers in Artillery Ames, an orphan in the outlaw camp of Dan McKetch, who lived by stealth and gunfire:- his boyhood, under the tutelage of a philosopher of sorts, a period in an Indian camp after he had saved the life of the chief's son, then his colorful, reckless career as an American agent in Florida. Indian lore, massacres, barroom intrigues and brawls, romantic interest, too, in an Indian maid, satisfy taste for adventure- and sex- but the book is primarily notable for its handling of a little-know facet of our history.