The Scent of Death

by Andrew Taylor

First published 2013

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In August 1778, London clerk Edward Savill arrives in British-controlled New York to assess compensation claims from Loyalists dispossessed by the American Revolution. The city is crowded with soldiers, refugees and profiteers, while rebel forces surround it and every declaration of loyalty may conceal private advantage.

The murder of a gentleman in the slums connects Savill’s official work with the troubled Wintour household where he is lodged. As further violence exposes corruption in the trade of war and restitution, he must decide which witnesses can be trusted in a city where political allegiance has become both a moral claim and a commercial opportunity.