Aboard a British convict ship bound for the New World, Duncan McCallum witnesses a series of murders and seeming suicides among his fellow Scottish prisoners that thrusts him into the bloody maw of the French and Indian War. As the only man aboard with any medical training, Duncan is ordered to assemble evidence to hold another prisoner accountable for the deaths — or face punishment that will mean his own death. His conclusions suggest that the wave of violence is somehow linked to the "savages" of the American wilderness. Duncan’s suspicions that the prison company is to be sacrificed in the war seem to be confirmed when he learns that they are all indentured to Lord Ramsey’s estate in the uncharted New York woodlands, a Heart of Darkness where multiple warring factions are engaged in physical, psychological, and spiritual battle.
