Lucifer's Drum — Bernie MacKinnon

One hundred and fifty years ago, a large Confederate force marched down the Shenandoah Valley and then headed for the Union capital. What happened next remains one of the great what-ifs of American history. "Lucifer's Drum" wraps this epic historical drama in a tale of blood, terror and suspense. June 1864: On a lonely road in the Shenandoah, federal agent Nathaniel Truly intercepts a horse-drawn carriage. What he discovers inside it sends him and his young partner Bartholomew Forbes on a quest to solve a string of ghastly murders. Meanwhile, ominous bits of intelligence point to a disaster-in-the-making: General Jubal Early's Confederate host is set to invade Maryland and strike at Washington, D.C. Even as Truly and Forbes connect the murders to a scheme that will ensure the capital's downfall, skeptical superiors leave the pair to struggle alone. The scheme, they learn, involves a brilliant and elusive Southern spy--but as Early's vengeful troops close in on the weakly garrisoned city, another dire fact takes shape: the spy has allies in Washington, individuals so lethal that he himself fears them, though they are essential to carrying out his secret plan. The darkness of the case threatens to consume the widower Truly, along with those he holds dearest--his son Ben, a lieutenant leading a company of black troops; his de facto adoptive daughter Sapphira, plucked from an auction block and spared an awful fate, now frustrated with the limits of her existence; his daughter Anna, radiant and frivolous, enthralled with a suitor who Truly can scarcely tolerate. Their fates, along with that of an entire country, will soon be swept into the merciless vortex of "Lucifer's Drum." Readers who enjoyed Caleb Carr's "Alienist" novels or E.L. Doctorow's "The Waterworks" will devour this one.