Lucifer's Drum

by Bernie MacKinnon

One hundred and fifty years ago, a large Confederate force marched down the Shenandoah Valley and then headed for the Union capitol. 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 capitol’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.

Genres: Historical Fiction

795 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 28, 2014

About the author

My family moved to the U.S. from Canada when I was ten. After that I lived mostly in Maine and graduated from the University of Maine at Orono. My first two novels ("The Meantime" and "Song For A Shadow," both young-adult) were published with Houghton Mifflin but the current one, "Lucifer's Drum," is self-published and a historical thriller, set in the American Civil War. These days I live and work in Memphis, Tennessee.

Reviews

[Michelle Willms · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read many true historical books in the past few years. If I'd come into contact with writing as detailed, and well-researched as Lucifer's Drum more often, I know I'd read many more historical works than I have in the past. I felt a connection with the actions of the book, as well as the people represented throughout. Bernie Mackinnon has ensured that I'll be reading more historical fiction in the future.

I received a copy of this book through the Goodreads Giveaway program. All opinions within this review are my own.

[Amanda Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. The twists and turns kept me guessing, and I was disappointed when my time travel back into history was over. The story of the Civil War became more than a list of battles. I met a cadre of heroes and villians with multiple agendas and tactics. Lucifer's Drum is one of the best novels I've read in a long time.

[Michael Compton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flannery O’Connor said that a good story “resists paraphrase,” and that pretty well sums up my difficulty in reviewing Bernie MacKinnon’s “Lucifer’s Drum”: I can categorize it by genre, describe its plot, praise its many virtues, but there is no way I can convey the impact it will have on a reader unless they pick it up and read it for themselves. This book is an EXPERIENCE, and I mean that in the best possible way. At almost 800 pages, readers may feel daunted, but don’t be: This is a page-turner, opening with a bang and pulling the reader along so successfully that the pages fly by. Part mystery, part thriller, and 100% historical novel, the story revolves around Jubal Early’s harassing campaign against Washington in the waning days of The Civil War. MacKinnon imagines a Confederate plot that, if successful, would have enabled Early to slip past the Union capital’s defenses and wreak havoc on the city, if not capture it outright. The novel begins as a mystery, with two Federal agents investigating the brutal murder of a Confederate sympathizer trying to make his escape to the South. The two sleuths—Maj. Nathaniel Truly and Capt. Bart Forbes—are worthy of a whole series of novels, but rather than indulge in the quirky or preternatural traits so common to fictional detectives, MacKinnon keeps his characters grounded in reality and fully human. And this is true of all the characters, from the fictional to the historical. Whether we are following the military exploits of Early and his subordinates, the extravagant treachery of the Confederate conspirators, or the personal trials of Truly’s diverse family (which includes a black daughter, whom Truly “adopted” as a girl at a slave market), the personalities, motivations, and actions of the characters always ring true. MacKinnon deftly weaves these disparate threads together, so that what may seem at first like secondary characters involved in their own interesting, but separate, subplots, all come together for a nerve-rattling climax. We know how all this comes out: the conspiracy never happened, Early never breached the capital, and the North won the war, but MacKinnon turns up the suspense so that the last quarter of the book is at times almost unbearably tense. The author achieves his effects not just through deft plotting and realistic characters, but with a fluidity of detail that left me wondering at times if what I was reading was the result of research or first-hand experience. “Lucifer’s Drum” is not a novel that you just read; it is a novel you live with, and it will stay with you, long after you have finished it and (regretfully) laid it aside.

[Bookerina Lovington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book! If you're a fan of historical fiction or the Civil War era, this is the book for you. Long, but good.