Three years after his famous exploration of the West, Meriwether Lewis was at the height of his reputation and career. He was governor of the Louisiana Territory, Thomas Jefferson's protege, and a viable presidential candidate. Then in 1809, at the age of thirty-five, Lewis was found dead in the yard of a backwoods Tennessee inn. Since that time, historians have fostered the belief that Meriwether Lewis was a suicide - an alcoholic, and a depressive personality.

Now - nearly two hundred years later - Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Leon Chandler exposes the truth behind this death in The Jefferson Conspiracies.

Key among the players in this forefathers' whodunit is Thomas Jefferson, the president who penned the Declaration of Independence. His multifaceted personality encompassed the brilliant mind of a philosopher as well as that of a tough, cagey power broker. As his career soared, so did his reputation - which had to be protected at all costs, even if that meant sacrificing others.

Lewis's chief antagonist - although unbeknownst to him - is James Wilkinson, a strutting, womanizing Revolutionary War general who had the patronage of George Washington. The Jefferson Conspiracies proves that he was an informant working for the Spanish, with secret ambitions to be president. It also examines the question of whether Aaron Burr was a traitor and how his schemes might have unintentionally laid the groundwork for murder.

And it gives vivid detail to a young nation reaching for independence and stability, destroying any who posed threats to its authority.