Home Front

The author of Flags of Our Sons delivers an immaculately researched, fast-paced thriller that plunges the reader right into the intrigue of the Civil War. A young and penniless boy, Johnny Madigan lies about his age to become a Union soldier. But after fighting his way through some of the most brutal conflicts of the American Civil War and surviving terrible wounds, Johnny now faces an even deadlier battlefield: he must fight on the home front. Johnny has proven himself a skilled spy. His commanders send him back to New York to penetrate an underground counterfeiting gang supplying forged US currency to the South. As he infiltrates the deadly cabal of plotters, he is sent to Canada where a murderous Confederate spy ring is plotting an armed uprising to take over New York City and hold it hostage—and so win the war for the Confederacy. But in Canada, it is impossible for Johnny to tell which side is which. Suspected by some of the plotters, he is seduced by the beautiful Letitia—a key member of the gang. Her orders are to expose him. Johnny dreams of returning to his childhood sweetheart, the girl who kept him alive as a destitute youth in the city’s slums. But Letitia is proving difficult to resist. At stake are Johnny’s heart, his life—and the outcome of the Civil War itself. “This is the Civil War in close-up, in all its fury and glory. A fantastic, captivating read.” —Richard Foreman, author of the Spies of Rome series