STORM THE LAST RAMPART

A fast-moving story of the last months of the American Revolution, this is also a solid historical novel which gives the reader the comfortable feeling that he has painlessly absorbed a great deal of inside information and been offered a broader panoramic view. Bennett Paige is a Rebel captain and a spy behind British lines. While on the British-held side of the Hudson, gathering the information which helps to lead to the exposure of Benedict Arnold and the capture of Major Andre, Bennett re-encounters the ""tavern wench"" Hannah, from whom he has previously been trying to secure information. Acquaintance ripens to mutual dislike. Later, however, Bennett discovers that Hannah is the unknown informer and a faithful Rebel. They join forces as spies and eventually fall in love. They also are not only privy to, but actively partake in the great deceptive strategy by which Washington secretly moved his troops away from the Hudson, in order to rap Corawallis in Yorktown, bombard him into surrender and win the war. This is substantial writing, full of the sound of muskets, galloping horses, and generals in moments of decision, and the battle of Yorktown provides an earsplitting conclusion. One realizes hat for all the rawness of its troops, this was a real war.