It’s the eve of the War of 1812. Thomas Jefferson declares that it’s a “mere matter of marching” for the United States to seize Upper Canada After witnessing the Battle of Tippecanoe, Jonathan Westlake, a young man ready to make his mark, returns home to York [now Toronto] from a successful fur trading expedition. Intervening in a scuffle to save a young woman’s life, he appears to have killed her stepfather. To escape arrest for murder, Westlake is now forced to join the British Army and pose as a fur trader while on a secret mission for Major General Isaac Brock.  In a frantic search for the girl he rescued, down Georgian Bay to Fort Detroit, Westlake discovers treachery in his own family circle. His friends, a French Canadian named Lapointe and a Shawnee native called Paxinos, will remain loyal to him in a battle that may cost all of them their lives.  As nations and men struggle for military supremacy in North America, the principal characters fight to the death over love, independence, and a fortune in furs.