THE ALLEGHENIES FRENCH & INDIAN WAR SERIES

David Rimer and I have written three French and Indian War novels set in the Allegheny River Valley in Pennsylvania and New York State during the 1750's. The main characters are freewheeling long hunters who have a knack for getting into trouble. Here is a look at the individual novels:

AMBUSH IN THE ALLEGHENIES

"A mountain man's first duty ain't to no king," yelped Lightnin' Jack Hawkins. It's to survive!" That was enough justification for his fellow scouts, Bearbite Bob Winslow and young Will Cutler, when they fled from the massacre of General Edward Braddock's redcoats near Fort Duquesne. Yes, survival was an everyday priority in the primordial forests of he Alleghenies. Dangers lurked everywhere here in the form of ferocious cougars, scalp-stealing savages and white water rivers of immense fury. The woodsmen's worst nemesis, though, was Bold Wolf, the vicious Ottawa chief who brutally murdered Cutler's father and wanted to kill all the English like one pigeon. It was only through Bold Wolf's demise that Cutler could achieve inner peace. But would the resourceful lad be brave enough to meet the challenge when his cruel foe ambushed him in the dense hemlocks of the Alleghenies?

ATTACK IN THE ALLEGHENIES

"All I want is to see what's over the next ridge an' to hunt er trap it!" exclaimed Jack Hawkins when pressed to explain his philosophy of life. That was to change quickly, however, when the woodsman was captured by villainous rum traders who took him to the Indian village of Kit-Han-Ne to face certain torture or death. Instead, the Delaware adopt Jack into their tribe, and he develops strong relationships with his brother, Red Hawk, and his mother, Willow. He also finds love in the arms of Little Mink, the maiden who helps him escape back to his own people. After the bloodthirsty warriors of Kittanning set the Pennsylvania frontier ablaze, Hawkins leads Colonel John Armstrong's colonial army to the village to burn it to the ground. When the white men display the same cruelty as the Delawares in exacting their revenge, Jack undergoes yet another life-altering experience.

ANNIHILATED IN THE ALLEGHENIES

"I'll take wolves an' panthers any day over men. 'Least ya know they wants ta gnaw off yer leg," growled Jack Hawkins after his family was annihilated by the worst sort of treachery. Now, he and his brother, Red Hawk, found themselves in a grim situation. Facing a winter without proper supplies, they return to civilization only to fight in Major James Grant's disastrous attack on Fort Duquesne. Retreating to Fort Ligonier, they later withstand two French assaults. In the second, Red Hawk is murdered in gristly fashion by the rogue Iroquois princess, Dark Star. Full of hatred and psychotic rage, she is a villain not soon to be forgotten! Nor is Doug Blood, the serial killer who befriends Hawkins. The age-old themes of wickedness and revenge darken this chapter of the French and Indian War set in the Pennsylvania wilderness of 1758.

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