The Raider

The Raider is a historical romance by the American writer Jude Deveraux, published in 1987. It belongs to her Montgomery/Taggert sequence of novels.

The book is set in colonial New England during the period of British rule, when a masked patriot is being hunted for raids that repeatedly frustrate the British, and the man behind the mask is known only by the name the Raider. Alexander Montgomery lives a double life, appearing in his own town as a drunken buffoon whom nobody takes seriously, and it is that disguise which allows him to carry on the work. Jessica Taggert, a proud and quick-tempered young woman, is thrilled by the Raider and holds Alexander in contempt, and the novel follows the difficulty of a man who cannot reveal to the woman he wants the thing that he actually is. Only a decisive success against the British would free him to do so.

Deveraux's Montgomery novels follow one family across several centuries and settings, and this one takes the sequence into colonial America.