General William Howe was the commander-in-chief of the British forces during the early campaigns of the Revolutionary War (1775-1783). He was an enigma, who appeared on multiple occasions to be on the verge of winning the war for Britain, only to repeatedly fail to deliver the final blow.

Howe evoked passionate reactions in the people he worked with; his men loved him, his second-in-command detested him, his enemies feared him, and his political masters despaired of him. There was even a plot to murder him, in which British officers as well as Americans were implicated.

This book will be the first major work on this inscrutable British general for more than 40 years. Previously largely ignored by historians due to a lack of primary source documents upon which to draw, the author's recent archival discoveries, and ground-breaking research means that there are fascinating new insights to be told about Howe's performance during the American Revolution.

Howe's story includes intrigue, romance, and betrayal, played out on the battlefields of North America and concluding in a courtroom at the House of Commons, where Howe defended his decisions with his reputation and possibly his life on the line. The inquiry, complete with witness testimonies and savage debate between the bitterly divided factions of the British Parliament, forms the framework for the book, giving it the flavor of a courtroom drama rather than a standard military narrative history. As Howe struggles to clear his name, the titanic forces at work during the birth of the United States of America rage around him.