THE KING'S BLACK RANGER

Social and legal impediments hamper the life of a mixed-race teen born out of wedlock to a baronet in this historical novel.

In 1774, Arthur Charteris owns a sugar plantation on the British colony of Grenada as well as 92 enslaved people. A reader of the philosopher John Locke, who wrote “Every man had a property in his own person,” Arthur doesn’t abuse those who toil for his fortune. When he purchases a 15-year-old girl named Weju, she proves herself a valuable healer. He frees her, and within a year, she runs the plantation at his side and is with child. Tragically, Weju dies soon after Alexander, or “Chart,” is born. Several years later, as Arthur inherits his father’s baronetcy, he and Chart return to Leicester, England. Chart has a happy countryside childhood at Knossington Hall, though his grandmother Lady Dorothea warns Arthur that the beloved mixed-race boy won’t legally inherit anything. When Chart is 13 years old, he meets his cousin Pemberton, who is two years older and has a slight hunch. Even before the boys attend Westminster together, Pemberton reveals lust and darkness in his heart. At school, Chart’s classmates torture him with words and deeds. He comes to believe his only escape from a society that loathes him lies with the military—and the warfare in India. From Ashby, author of the Seth Armitage historical thrillers, comes an adventure set in the twilight years of slavery in England. Chart's journey encapsulates an era in which empires fractured and intellectuals such as Thomas Paine exposed leaders like Thomas Jefferson, who, “despite proclaiming that all men are created equal,” believed “blacks are inferior to whites.” Alongside copious research and sharp prose that honors the character of the 18th century, the author displays a modern flair for drama and gore (“Chart saw a bamboo pole...with a human head stuck on the top”). Pemberton eventually succeeds in destroying Chart’s legal claims. The cousin’s villainy later overshadows Chart’s romance with Arabella Sherrard, a girl from a poor family who venerates his Caribbean lineage. Plenty of intense action awaits readers in the final third.

A well-researched adventure that skillfully mixes warts-and-all history with cinematic action.