"For years Samuel Xavier Adams's father has been a shadow figure in his family's lives, vanishing and reappearing, keeping a slender connection from afar while his wife and childred are haunted by loneliness, his daughter wasted by addictions, and his son, Sam, hounded by his father's enemies."--Jacket.

With the outbreak of the American revolution, Abigail Lovell's family is torn apart--while her schoolmaster father is an outspoken loyalist and prominent figurehead in the community, she and her two brothers engage in acts of espionage to undermine the British forces in Boston. Her sickly older brother, James, operates the patriots' spy ring while Abigail acts as a courier, eluding increasingly aggressive British patrols. Meanwhile, her younger brother,...