Caroom’s Raid

Caroom’s Raid is a rousing tale of a modern man blending duplicity, audacity, and decency to survive in a brutal eighteenth century alternate-history version of an alien Appalachia frontier and lawless Gulf coast. Rex’s steamboat, the Mischief, has a contract to deliver the Wapiti’s cargo of prized winter-sloe nuts to Port Delta on the Gulf coast, a voyage of 1000 kilometers down the pirate infested Erie River. East from the port, along the Gulf coast is Orleans where Rex’s partner, Amy Caroom, an escaped slave, wants to go. She intends to collect a debt owed her by Herr Purnell, her former owner and father. Rex thinks Amy’s idea reckless since her father has posted a large reward for her capture, dead or alive. Then the Ichneumons arrest Rex while he’s collecting the gold payment for the cargo. He escapes, drugged by his partner, and wakes to find himself, the gold, and his boat in Orleans. Then there’s the matter of the exploding war between the Ichneumons and Prussians empires closing the Erie River and the Ichneumon navy confiscating the gold and his Mischief.