Customer Reviews

Dreams of Glory

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Historian/novelist Thomas Fleming is at his best in this spy story set in the American Revolution. Great, complex characters, lots of historical detail and insight-- and a very suspenseful plot. Combines tragedy, patriotism, love, lust, and sudden, savage violence into a rip-roaring story.

Based on true events, Fleming provides insight into historical characters great and small. Towering above them all-- as he does in ANY book that is true to the events-- is George Washington.

A vastly under rated soldier, who learned quickly from his early mistakes, GW was also a brilliant spymaster, who probably integrated intelligence work with the tactical movements of his army, as well as any commander in US history.

Lively, informative, and entertaining, this continuation of Fleming's Liberty Tavern series is as fun a way to learn about American history as has yet been invented.

Thomas Fleming captures the duplicity and destructive nature of espionage with this novel of spies during the American Revolution. By utilizing an incredible grasp of the time period, Fleming creates a very plausible scenario, a plot to kidnap George Washington. Caught between British and American spymasters is Caleb Chandler, a minister, who has lost his faith in face of war's destruction. He finds instead a woman of questionable loyalties and this leads him into a world from which he can find no escape. Filled with double dealing and a gamesmanship usually found LeCarre novels, DREAMS OF GLORY gives the reader of what cloak and dagger was like during America's early years. I did have some difficulty accepting some of the personality transformations different characters undergo, they seem to be more for the purpose of moving the plot along as opposed to having real depth, but the real focus here is on the intrigue and the setting. Fleming makes this combination hard to resist.