Title: Hatred is the key
Description: Graham Sclater’s scintillating new book Hatred Is the Key tells the aftermath of little-publicized War where 10,000+ Americans were held in a cold stone prison in England for years, even for 4 months AFTER the war was declared finished. They were tortured.
US Navy men, boys, merchants, slaves and ex-slaves were all tortured, some 13-year-old boys dying immediately in the winter cold without food and overrun by bugs and disease.
The Englishmen in charge suffered their own consequences in the War of 1812 and no one won any land in America or Canada. American Indians on Britain’s side lost the land promised to them and slaves killed in prison were finally free.
This book could be the basis of award-winning essays and reports in Americans schools and may become the basis for a fine film in the future.
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**Hatred is the Key, Graham Sclater**
This atmospheric novel is set amongst American prisoners of war being held in the Dartmoor Depot at the end of the War of 1812, during a period in which POWs could be treated very badly. The novel starts with a naval battle late in the war, before moving to the Dartmoor depot, originally built for French Prisoners of War, but by this date massively overcrowded with American prisoners. That overcrowding is perhaps reflected in the cast, especially amongst the American prisoners (although it is fair to say that the cast does get rather dramatically thinned out over the course of the novel).
The large number of American characters is probably there to balance the equally large number of British characters, although the British are split into rather more groups, making them more distinctive. The size of the cast does mean that the author has been able to balance out his heroes and villains, with plenty on both sides.
Sclater does a good job of bringing to life the unfamiliar world of a POW camp of this period, where a brutal prison regime existed alongside a surprising amount of contact with the outside world. The POW plot builds to a satisfyingly dramatic conclusion, loosely based on real events. One or two of the other plots are perhaps a little well handled, but that can be forgiven
Author: Graham Sclater
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 317
Publisher: Tabitha Books
Subjects: Dartmoor prison, War 1812-1814, Tabitha Books, Graham Sclater
Places: Dartmoor Prison, New Orleans, England, USA
People: Prince of Wales, Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt
Time periods: 1812-1815