A boy living with Founding Father John Jay gets groomed for a secret intelligence network overseen by a mysterious man in this third installment of a historical fiction series.

In a prologue, Peter Jay uses the key given to him by his recently deceased father, John, to access a manuscript that “looks beneath the record” with margins “crowded with a single name, written over and over—Mr. Smith.” The narrative then continues in chapters that jump back and forth in time to share the saga of the Doctrine, a covert agency led by Smith, that spans from the run-up to the American Revolutionary War to Andrew Jackson’s rise to the presidency. This latest series installment introduces a new fictional main character called Cyrus, a foundling brought by Smith—whose origin story was covered in Phantom Patriot (2025)—to John Jay and his wife, Sarah, in Spain in 1780. The couple were residing in the country during Jay’s ambassadorship there. Cyrus is raised as part of the Jay family, eventually moving back with the clan to the United States. Meanwhile, he receives secret instructions on how to become a Doctrine asset. By the age of 16, he begins his assignments, with Cyrus and others traveling the globe to perform such tasks as switching shipping manifests. A watershed moment involves Cyrus meeting the alluring Camille, soon revealed to be a French intelligence agent, with the two drawn to each other despite differing missions. Both Smith and Cyrus elude assassination attempts thanks to surprising saviors. Then, by 1829, the Doctrine itself is in jeopardy with “Jefferson’s shadow fading fast” and “half the old norms...being stripped for sport” in the new Jackson era.

“If this story sends you back to the footnotes others skim—if you pause when the archive goes too quiet too quickly—then it has done its work,” notes Gosselin in his afterword, objectives well met in this intriguing imagining of an Illuminati-type force operating on behalf of the emerging U.S. on the world stage. The author points to his discovery of a notation for “payment rendered for intelligence” to a “Smith” in a 1786 ledger found in the Library of Congress as inspiration for his series. Gosselin’s love of documentation is evident throughout this latest installment, with the Doctrine’s work often involving forging or misdirecting papers and Peter Jay left puzzling over a final code in that unlocked manuscript, setting the stage for a possible fourth volume in this series. Unfortunately, the author can focus a bit too much on Doctrine mechanics and minutiae (the secret meetings, even those with Founding Fathers, become somewhat repetitive) while not always providing enough background on the actual historical events covered. Many readers will likely stop and consult external sources to better understand the context of this novel’s references to the Chesapeake-Leopard affair, the Shays’ Rebellion, U.S. concerns in Haiti in 1802, and more. Scenes featuring Doctrine operatives other than Cyrus and Smith also distract from the compelling duo. Still, the most striking takeaway of this engaging work is how fraught the U.S.’s beginnings were, with the issues faced by the young nation—including disagreements about trade embargoes and how to enter others’ wars—still resonating today.

This exuberant, if dizzying, espionage tale will prompt readers to learn more about American history.

A bereaved young Frenchman takes aim at British power and privilege as he sets about avenging his family in Gosselin’s thriller.

Jean-Paul Martineau, after he and his Huguenot family flee to Britain in the 1720s, leap from the proverbial frying pan into the fire after his merchant father, René, runs afoul of entrenched mercantile interests. Jean-Paul rapidly loses his loved ones in a tragic tale that climaxes with trumped-up treason charges and capital punishment for his father.Oddly, rather than escape with the son he’s grooming for greatness (“It's all arranged. A ship will be waiting”), René passes on a more basic remit: “Survive. And make them pay.” It’s one of several suspensions of disbelief that’s required in following Jean-Paul to 1750s-era Boston, where colonial resentment against British oppression is simmering and gathering steam. Without missing a beat, Martineau assumes the quintessentially anonymous persona of “Mr. Smith” as he seeks to determine who can be compromised for the brewing revolutionary cause. The final shots of the Revolutionary War rang out nearly 300 years ago, yet readers’ fascination with the conflict, and its runup, has never abated, as this taut thriller suggests. Gosselin presents a world of cold pragmatism, served in crisp, pithy aphorisms (“Practical men live to see revolutions succeed”), with characters driven by the promise of money or opportunity; the novel also includes some larger-than-life figures, including George Washington, Thomas Paine, and Benjamin Franklin, to name a few. Plots and counterplots unfold at dizzying speed as Jean-Paul seeks to repay a nearly 40-year-old debt, and the story’s resolution is most unexpected. Some readers may be reminded of the AMC series Turn: Washington’s Spies, and fans of that show should feel right at home here.

An intricately plotted tale of revenge.