Enemies of Church

Author E.M. Kelly here. I’m excited to announce a new historical murder mystery thriller I’m working on titled, ENEMIES of CHURCH.

Stoughton Detective Colton Baker must look deep into the town’s past to find the link in order to crack the code and stop a sadistic killer before they strike again.

Enemies of Church takes place in my hometown of Stoughton, Massachusetts and I’ve been consulting with Stoughton Police Detective Dan Barber. He’s worked on and helped solve several homicides and he’s been extremely helpful and a real pleasure to work with. Detective Barber even accompanied me to several locations around town where crime scenes take place in the book, and he did this on his own time.

Describing the scenes to him, he told me what he saw through his eyes as a detective. Tapping into his insights has been highly beneficial to the writing process, ensuring I get things right.

There is so much history in this town and surrounding area and while searching through it, I came upon Dr. Benjamin Church. Appointed by General George Washington, Dr. Church became the country’s first Surgeon General of the U.S. Army. Unbeknownst to Washington, Benjamin Church was loyal to the crown. Having access to all the military hospitals and bases, Dr. Church sent encrypted messages to General Gage of the British army. In those messages, he provided intelligence on Washington’s troop size and movement.

Dr. Benjamin Church eventually got caught passing encrypted messages and the excerpt below is from his last message he sent to General Gage, which was intercepted.

“To make a merit of my services, I sent them down and when they received them they sent them to Stoughton to be out of danger, even tho they had formed the resolution.”

The “resolution” is in regards to the Suffolk Resolves, which Church helped Dr. James Warren write. Those resolves were given to acting Massachusetts Governor British General Thomas Gage in response to the Intolerable Acts also known as the Coercive Acts (Stamp Act, Townshend Acts, Tea Act, Boston Port Act, Quartering Act, Administration of Justice Act, and the Massachusetts Government Act). These resolves lead to the Battles of Bunker Hill, Lexington, and Concord which ended with the siege of Boston. Paul Revere rode to Pennsylvania and delivered the Suffolk Resolves to the First Continental Congress where they became the foundation for the Declaration of Independence.

Through my year and a half of research I have found out that Dr. Benjamin Church was one of the first founding fathers who worked closely with James Warren, John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere to stand up to the British Empire.

What did Church send to Stoughton? And there lies the question which opens the door for ENEMIES of CHURCH.

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