A compelling and historically accurate novel about the Underground Railroad seen through the eyes of a young man caught between black and white worlds.

Boston, 1859. West Point Cadet Jack Ruffin, raised in high (white) society, learns that his real mother was a slave. Now the clock is ticking on his desperate journey to find her and to help her escape with the help of the Underground Railroad – an ingenious organisation dedicated to spiriting runaway slaves to freedom.

The reader moves between black and white worlds – the world of slavery, slave markets, free blacks (Freedmen) and the Underground Railroad. The world of white society (North and South) peopled by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson and his daughter Ellen, with whom Jack is in love. And the world of planters, slave traders, slave catchers and the Patrol whose job it was to keep the slaves in their place. The book also introduces the reader to the pre-American-Civil War South, its people and traditions, from the point of view of those resisting slavery and the institutions (formal and informal), which nourished it.

You meet Grace, a Harriet Tubman-like figure who is the founder of several branches of the Underground Railroad. You meet Tracker, Grace's eyes and ears. You will see them operate in hostile territory in a bid to assist Jack in securing his mother’s freedom. You will meet the members of the Patrol and see their methods, their desperate and casual cruelty as they struggle to keep slaves in bondage and rush against time to thwart Jack.

Through Jack, you see all these worlds, as if for the first time, in fast-paced action as it rushes to its dramatic and heart-rending conclusion.

About the Author

Grant Simpson is a Barrister and QC in England who, in 1971–75, was a Morehead Scholar studying American History, Journalism and Literature (and campaigning for civil rights) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His connections to UNC and his love of American history still remain strong. He is a member of the Ulysses Grant Association and has spent time researching at the Ulysses Grant Presidential Library at Starkville Mississippi. He lives in London and St Andrews.