FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

NEW BOOK EXPLORES THE SECRET LIFE OF EXPLORER MERIWETHER LEWIS

Tony L. Turnbow has announced the release of his new book, Jefferson’s Spy: The Secret Life of Meriwether Lewis. 

The cause of explorer Meriwether Lewis’s death is one of the great American mysteries.  Three years after co-leading the Lewis and Clark Expedition across the North American continent, the 35-year-old died suddenly on the Natchez Trace, a road so dangerous that travelers called it “The Devil’s Backbone.”

Lewis was said to have died from two or three gunshot wounds, a cut throat, and wounds on his arms and legs.  It was reported that the explorer took his own life, yet historians have debated the cause of Lewis’s death for more than two centuries.

This first volume of a two-volume series tells the story of how Thomas Jefferson became a mentor to the young Virginian farm boy and harnessed Lewis’s love of exploration and danger for “secret service,” as official spying was known in the day.  Lewis and Clark became part of a select group that the government used for clandestine missions. Men in Jefferson’s position found it useful to engage their own spies and agents.

As Lewis would learn,  powerful interests in the new nation developed divided loyalties, and spies were everywhere.  Turnbow describes how Lewis found himself entangled in shadowy networks of  double-agents, scoundrels, and highway robbers as he worked to perform Jefferson’s mission to extend the nation’s boundaries to the Pacific and Rio Grande.  In that role, Lewis also became a threat to the most powerful and despicable spy in American history.

As the United States takes stock of its 250 years, this book examines the secret role Meriwether Lewis played in creating the nation Americans enjoy today.  Whether Lewis gave his life in his mission or whether the obstacles he faced overwhelmed him may be clearer with  this fresh look at his relationship with his mentor, Thomas Jefferson, and the extraordinary  American life he was given an opportunity to live.

Signed copies of Jefferson’s Spy may be purchased through Landmark Booksellers in Franklin, Tennessee.  The book is also available on Amazon in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions and from other online retailers and bookstores.

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For more information:

Tony L. Turnbow, tturnbow@tonyturnbowlaw.com