Master of Breath

In the early 1930's, a vicious criminal, alleged to be a prophet and the grandson of the great Seminole war chief, Osceola, escapes from a Florida prison along with two condemned black convicts, recruits a few reservation tribesmen sick of being "road stand Indians," snatches a pair of young hostages and goes on an insanely tragic and doomed campaign to "take back this pointed land" or to kill as many whites as possible before defeat and death.

The novel is a story of flickering madness and...