BookList - Denise Perry Donavin
In this Civil War novel, Mitchell blends realistic battle scenes with a chilling mystery about a savage murderer of pacifist farmers. The novel's hero is the one-armed Union surgeon, Colonel Simon Wolfe, who at one point makes the near-fatal mistake of suspecting his commander, Phil Sheridan. Wolfe must battle his personal demons, his alienation from his Virginia family, and his military injury, as well as Mosby's Rangers, his peers' desire to overlook the murders, and unrelenting skirmishes in the Shenandoah Valley of 1864. Well plotted, with history so real the reader is transported full of fear.