Flight of the Hawk

Flight of the Hawk follows John Tylor, a fugitive burdened by his association with the Burr conspiracy, as he enters the Missouri fur trade during the War of 1812. Travelling first with Manuel Lisa’s river expedition and then into the northern Plains, Tylor encounters rival traders, hired killers and Native communities defending their own interests in a rapidly changing borderland.

The two novels combine frontier adventure with the political and commercial struggle for the upper Missouri. The river, plains and mountains are not empty wilderness but contested homelands crossed by Shoshoni, Arapaho and Euro-American travellers. Tylor’s pursuit by Fenway McKeever links both volumes, while the wounded hawk becomes a symbol of survival, responsibility and the possibility of beginning again.