Thieves' Quarry (The Thieftaker Chronicles)
D. B. Jackson
Language: English
Pages: 320
ISBN: 0765327627
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Ethan Kaille isn't the likeliest hero. A former sailor with a troubled past, Ethan is a thieftaker, using conjuring skills to hunt down those who steal from the good citizens of Boston. And while chasing down miscreants in 1768 makes his life a perilous one, the simmering political tensions between loyalists like himself and rabble-rousing revolutionaries like Samuel Adams and others of his ilk are perhaps even more dangerous to his health.
When one hundred sailors of King George III's Royal Navy are mysteriously killed on a ship in Boston Harbor, Ethan is thrust into dire peril. For he―and not Boston's premier thieftaker, Sephira Pryce―is asked to find the truth behind their deaths. City Sheriff Edmund Greenleaf suspects conjuring was used in the dastardly crime, and even Pryce knows that Ethan is better equipped to contend with matters of what most of Boston considers dark arts. But even Ethan is daunted by magic powerful enough to fell so many in a single stroke. When he starts to investigate, he realizes that the mass murderer will stop at nothing to evade capture. And making his task more difficult is the British fleet's occupation of the city after the colonials' violent protests after the seizure of John Hancock's ship. Kaille will need all his own magic, street smarts, and a bit of luck to keep this Boston massacre from giving the hotheads of Colonial Boston an excuse for inciting a riot―or worse.
Thieves' Quarry is a stunning second novel in D. B. Jackson's Thieftaker Chronicles.
The Oversight (The Oversight Trilogy, Book 1)
Raven Mask (Kassandra Lyall Preternatural Investigator, Book 2)
Circle of Enemies (A Twenty Palaces Novel, Book 3)
Seeker's Curse (Rogue Angel, Book 19)
Thicker Than Blood (Twenty-Sided Sorceress, Book 6)
worked on every man on that ship.” Osborne laughed again, and shook his head. “Wish I’d seen their faces—all those officers.” Ethan remembered his own revealing spell aboard the Graystone and how it worked on several of the soldiers instead of just the one. It seemed the same thing had happened to the sisters’ spell. Molly stood by her father, gaping at him, her mouth open, a stricken look in her large, dark eyes. “I don’t understand,” she said. “The spell we used to wake you—” With a visible
noticed Ethan, although they would have had he spoken his spell. They were gazing out over the harbor, as he had been. Spectacles held a brass spyglass, which he raised now to his eye. It seemed to Ethan that he had it trained on the sloop. Rather than halt again and thus draw attention to himself, Ethan kept his head down and walked past the men. But his pulse raced. Whatever had happened to the British sloop-of-war had drawn the attention of Sephira’s conjurer friend. Or perhaps the man had
message to Lieutenant Senhouse on the Launceston, and still a while longer for Senhouse to dispatch a pinnace to the island. But eventually, late in the morning, the small boat that would take Ethan back to Boston reached the fortress. Rickman accompanied Ethan onto the wharf. “Thank you for your help,” he said, extending a hand. “I found our time together most educational.” Ethan grinned. “I was glad to be of service. As my inquiry continues, I may need your expertise. Will I be able to reach
it possible for one conjurer to bring another back from death, assuming that the second man really had died?” “Kaille,” Janna said again, regarding him with the disappointment a mother might show for a wayward son. “All the time you ask me if spells can do this or spells can do that. Haven’t you learned yet? Spells can do anythin’ if the conjurer castin’ them is strong enough.” Ethan felt the blood drain from his face, making his cheeks grow cold. “So—” “So, a man who looked like he was dead,
It promised to be a long, miserable night. Every muscle in his body burned. His jaw had grown stiff around the gag. He was chilled and damp and bone weary. And right now his bladder felt uncomfortably full—what he would have given to have skipped that ale in Janna’s tavern. No doubt Greenleaf and his prison guards wanted him to soil himself, to soak in his humiliation. Ethan refused. Before the night was out he might well have no choice in the matter. But for now, he would cling to his dignity.
