On a summer day in 1776, 13-year-old Jemima Boone and two friends disappeared near the Kentucky settlement of Boonesboro. A Cherokee-Shawnee raiding party had taken the girls as part of their ongoing war with settlers, but Hanging Maw recognized that Jemima—the daughter of Daniel Boone—was an especially valuable hostage. Even as Hanging Maw devised a plan that could bring greater peace to the region, Daniel Boone and his posse ambushed the raiders. Vividly capturing the spirit of the era, Matthew Pearl uses this dramatic encounter to illustrate the turmoil of America's westward expansion.