If you like mystery, or history, or Civil War, or Civil War historical mystery, then you should like this book. I should add that this story is real, not over-the-top, heart pounding, non-stop action. The three protagonist get into their share of trouble, but it is all believable. It could have happened.

This is the first of four books based in the South during the war. All four deal with medical issues and mysteries linked to the issues. Ann McMillan wrote Dead March in 1998, so there are old paperbacks available at many outlets. Amazon recently published the Kindle version with plans to publish the other three in the series.

Narcissa Powers is a widowed white woman of means who links up with Judah Daniel, a free black woman with grit, to find out which of the teaching doctors of the Medical College of Virginia killed Narcissa’s brother and several others. Much of the story pulls us into the personal lives of the two women and into the Southern mind-set of 1861.

I am happy I purchased a used copy. I like my e-reader, but a dusty old book is a treasure.

Mike Lawrence