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Abel Jones #2
Shadows of Glory
With the Irish on the verge of an uprising in the Finger Lakes region of New York and the Civil War raging in the South, Abel Jones is sent to keep the peace on behalf of the Union Army. Reprint.
384 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
October 17, 2012
At first I commended the author on how well he mimicked the prejudices and small mindedness of the average 19th Century person. Then I found out who he is in real life and realized that those are his actual opinions today and it's no great stretch. Books are still entertaining, though. He's a talented writer.
But don't BUY them if you're a liberal. Get them from the library. You don't want your money going to this Fox News contributor who has vilified captured servicemen in uniform, called for the boundaries of the Middle East to be redrawn and for the political assassination of Julian Assange.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Pe...
But don't BUY them if you're a liberal. Get them from the library. You don't want your money going to this Fox News contributor who has vilified captured servicemen in uniform, called for the boundaries of the Middle East to be redrawn and for the political assassination of Julian Assange.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Pe...
February 16, 2021
This is the second in the Civil War mystery series featuring Union Major Abel Jones, a Welshman who has seen his share of the horrors of war while fighting for 5he Union and for England in battles in India.
Owen Parry, the pen name of Ralph Peters, has written a novel that places you right in the middle of what this country was like in 1861. In this novel, Major Abel Jones is sent to upstate New York to investigate a large Irish immigrant population who may be looking to start an insurrection against the United States. Instead, what he finds is a a more sinister plot which if it is successful, will certainly change the tide of war to the Confederacy’s favor.
The storyline was intriguing, and based somewhat on true events, and the descriptions of the carnage of the Civil War are mind boggling. But I found this novel a little too wordy. And while I know Parry tries accurately reflect the times, I found the prejudicial descriptions of some people and ethnicities to be rather disturbing. Even from our hero, Major Jones. Don’t expect a lot of action or descriptions of Civil War battles, as in his first novel. But an entertaining read nonetheless. Just could have been less wordy.
Owen Parry, the pen name of Ralph Peters, has written a novel that places you right in the middle of what this country was like in 1861. In this novel, Major Abel Jones is sent to upstate New York to investigate a large Irish immigrant population who may be looking to start an insurrection against the United States. Instead, what he finds is a a more sinister plot which if it is successful, will certainly change the tide of war to the Confederacy’s favor.
The storyline was intriguing, and based somewhat on true events, and the descriptions of the carnage of the Civil War are mind boggling. But I found this novel a little too wordy. And while I know Parry tries accurately reflect the times, I found the prejudicial descriptions of some people and ethnicities to be rather disturbing. Even from our hero, Major Jones. Don’t expect a lot of action or descriptions of Civil War battles, as in his first novel. But an entertaining read nonetheless. Just could have been less wordy.
January 22, 2023
Tghis is the second and I think best novel in the Abel Jones series. Jones is an interesting protagonist, full of the vernacular and prejudices of the era, but a good man trying to see that justice is serbved. A former soldier in the British Army in India, Jones is now a Union officer and a valued detective of President Lincoln. His Welch heritage is never far off. In the winter of 1862, Jones is sent to northern New York to investigate talk of an Irish insurrection and a planned attack on Canada. Two federal undercover agents have been murdered. He travels to the Upstate New York town of Penn Yan. He is soon the target of the Irish hooligans, members of a group called Whiteboys (this before the Proud Boys were a thing). Can he forestall their plans?
April 6, 2017
Second in the series and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Major Abel Jones is even more fascinating as I get to know him better. The others mentioned, his wife, his friends, army acquaintances, continue to become more familiar. Speech patterns are charming and I've considered reading the book again and 'collecting' some of his sayings and asides. This won't be the last that I read of the series and I suspect I'll be sad when I finish the final one.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 23, 2021
Disappointed. Seemed to have lots of things I'd like--Civil War, Irish immigrants, locale in Finger Lakes. Found the characters to be caricatures, with every possible stereotype thrown in. Dialogue was wooden. Plot was predictable. Was hoping this would be a series to get hooked into. Can't see reading another.
July 31, 2021
I know. I know. War isn't just the battles. War doesn't doesn't end in a neat two hours. But this dragged way too much! I even understood that he created this using the stilted style of writing and speaking of the 1860s. It is good to know and remember that there are many small subplots. Even though I'm a history buff, this was not for me.
October 22, 2023
I read this as an eBook on an iPad. It may not be easy to find in print. It’s an easy to read detective story set during the civil war. It’s far more a detective story than a civil war story, although there are civil war interludes. It’s far more a fiction than a historical fiction, although there are inspirations taken from the period.
February 8, 2021
I did not care for this book at all. I couldn’t get into this style of writing. I could not follow the story. I could not figure out what the plot of the book was or what the ending meant. Definitely not going to read any further books by this author.
August 22, 2022
DNF @ 10%.
The gimmick worked the first time around with the racist, culturally "a man of his time" Welshman Abel Peters looking into mysteries during the US Civil War. I just couldn't get into it in a second book and this didn't seem to be going anywhere. On to something else!
The gimmick worked the first time around with the racist, culturally "a man of his time" Welshman Abel Peters looking into mysteries during the US Civil War. I just couldn't get into it in a second book and this didn't seem to be going anywhere. On to something else!
August 11, 2019
i really do enjoy Parry's historical fiction and he Civil War gov detective Abel Jones. mixing in of hisorical chars is cool
March 21, 2022
The series by Owen Parry is solidly entertaining, even if it is not fine literature. Great for time-traveling to the Civil War era.
March 11, 2024
What mastery of the English language. Just enough Civil War background to keep me on board. I plan on reading the entire Abel Jones series.
February 29, 2012
Excellent 2nd of six books in the series. Here is the review from Amazon.com-----------
A Union agent dies on a snow-swept moor above a New York lake. A man who calls himself "the Great Kildare" delights notables with seances and mesmeric trances. A strange, red-haired girl whose odd "features summed to beauty" makes uncanny prophecies while clutching a terrible secret. Immigrants are torn between support for Lincoln's war and sullen hatred. And an officer with a limp appears at a burial ....
Abel Jones, the quiet hero of Owen Parry's acclaimed debut novel, Faded Coat of Blue, thrilled readers with his revelations of Civil War America in prose jeweled with historical detail and singing with the lilt of a Welsh immigrant's tongue. Now the Lincoln government has dispatched Jones to a remote northern county where one Federal agent after another has been murdered. Fresh from his journey-and still recovering from a bout of typhoid-he encounters brutality in a churchyard and an unsettling reception from the local authorities. Before the first day of his mission ends, he meets a disfigured effigy of himself, dangling in the winter wind, with a signboard that warns: look heer and no yur fate.
That "great blaze of brains," Secretary of State William Seward, worries about an immigrant insurrection, but Jones discovers instead a haunted world in which lost loves appear from beyond the grave and a girl's cough hints at blood to come. While Jones struggles to make sense of a society set on end, the war bleeds on in a distant winter campaign . . . where a cherished friend has his own tie to the murders.
Beautifully told and ingeniously grounded in history, Shadows of Glory takes readers from the brooding hills and lakes of the troubled North to savage combat in the border states, from the plots and fears of wartime Washington to the immigrant slums that furnished the Union with soldiers. Rich in characters both fictional and historical, gorgeous in its language, clear as winter sunlight and swift as the telegraph that binds a young country together, Owen Parry's new novel broadens the panorama of Civil War America opened in his Faded Coat of Blue.
A Union agent dies on a snow-swept moor above a New York lake. A man who calls himself "the Great Kildare" delights notables with seances and mesmeric trances. A strange, red-haired girl whose odd "features summed to beauty" makes uncanny prophecies while clutching a terrible secret. Immigrants are torn between support for Lincoln's war and sullen hatred. And an officer with a limp appears at a burial ....
Abel Jones, the quiet hero of Owen Parry's acclaimed debut novel, Faded Coat of Blue, thrilled readers with his revelations of Civil War America in prose jeweled with historical detail and singing with the lilt of a Welsh immigrant's tongue. Now the Lincoln government has dispatched Jones to a remote northern county where one Federal agent after another has been murdered. Fresh from his journey-and still recovering from a bout of typhoid-he encounters brutality in a churchyard and an unsettling reception from the local authorities. Before the first day of his mission ends, he meets a disfigured effigy of himself, dangling in the winter wind, with a signboard that warns: look heer and no yur fate.
That "great blaze of brains," Secretary of State William Seward, worries about an immigrant insurrection, but Jones discovers instead a haunted world in which lost loves appear from beyond the grave and a girl's cough hints at blood to come. While Jones struggles to make sense of a society set on end, the war bleeds on in a distant winter campaign . . . where a cherished friend has his own tie to the murders.
Beautifully told and ingeniously grounded in history, Shadows of Glory takes readers from the brooding hills and lakes of the troubled North to savage combat in the border states, from the plots and fears of wartime Washington to the immigrant slums that furnished the Union with soldiers. Rich in characters both fictional and historical, gorgeous in its language, clear as winter sunlight and swift as the telegraph that binds a young country together, Owen Parry's new novel broadens the panorama of Civil War America opened in his Faded Coat of Blue.
October 7, 2010
Sometimes you happen upon an author and it is your lucky day! I had a copy of Owen Parry's first book, Shadows of Glory, in my house for years and never read it for some reason. Last week when I was "out of books" from the library, I picked it up and found that it is the second book in a series. I immediately put the first book, Faded Coat of Blue, on order and read it. It has gotten me back to reading about the Civil War, which I have always enjoyed. This one, Shadows of Glory, was as good as the first. Placed in upper New York state in a small town in 1861, it takes the main character, Major Abel Jones, on another quest to solve a murder, possible related to threats to the Union.
I had forgotten that this time was one that saw thousands of immigrants from Europe. The Irish, German, Italian immigrants were pouring into America, most of them settling at that time in the Eastern states.
This story involved the Irish in upstate New York. They were poor and striving for a place in this new country. Our story involved a Mesmerist and his daughter, the assorted characters from the town, and our Abel Jones trying to make a place there so that he can stop the threats.
I so much enjoy Abel's character. He has such an honest personality and his faith is such a gift. He struggles through his fears and memories. You can practically "hear" the lilt of the Irish accent as Owen Parry writes! The history of the Civil War is well preserved.
I had forgotten that this time was one that saw thousands of immigrants from Europe. The Irish, German, Italian immigrants were pouring into America, most of them settling at that time in the Eastern states.
This story involved the Irish in upstate New York. They were poor and striving for a place in this new country. Our story involved a Mesmerist and his daughter, the assorted characters from the town, and our Abel Jones trying to make a place there so that he can stop the threats.
I so much enjoy Abel's character. He has such an honest personality and his faith is such a gift. He struggles through his fears and memories. You can practically "hear" the lilt of the Irish accent as Owen Parry writes! The history of the Civil War is well preserved.
July 10, 2013
Details - the author is a master of details. And these details, combined with finely developed characters and an interesting plot make for a good read.
Jenkins comment: other reviews will go over the story line.
My choice for most moving passage --
Abel Jones has gone to a Jewish tailor to get a new uniform. (The tailor was introduced in the first Abel Jones novel) The tailor's son is planning on enlisting. The tailor wants Jones to convince his son not to enlist. Able tries but the son explains that everyone thinks Jews are cowards. He has to join the army to prove that Jews can indeed fight.
The son is assigned to a unit made up primarily of Germans (think 19th century Germany not 20th century Germany) and off he goes to war.
In the next couple of sentences the author moved me to tears - - it is two years later, Spring 1863, and while the rest of his regiment fled in terror, the son of the Jewish tailor stood his ground against overwhelming odds. He was part of the XI corps which broke and ran when attacked by Stonewall Jackson.
He died at Chancellorsville. No, he was not a coward. And his father was heartbroken.
It is scenes like this that make this book so good.
Jenkins comment: other reviews will go over the story line.
My choice for most moving passage --
Abel Jones has gone to a Jewish tailor to get a new uniform. (The tailor was introduced in the first Abel Jones novel) The tailor's son is planning on enlisting. The tailor wants Jones to convince his son not to enlist. Able tries but the son explains that everyone thinks Jews are cowards. He has to join the army to prove that Jews can indeed fight.
The son is assigned to a unit made up primarily of Germans (think 19th century Germany not 20th century Germany) and off he goes to war.
In the next couple of sentences the author moved me to tears - - it is two years later, Spring 1863, and while the rest of his regiment fled in terror, the son of the Jewish tailor stood his ground against overwhelming odds. He was part of the XI corps which broke and ran when attacked by Stonewall Jackson.
He died at Chancellorsville. No, he was not a coward. And his father was heartbroken.
It is scenes like this that make this book so good.
December 16, 2014
Slow, slow, slow. Put down and walked away at two different points in the first third of the book. Came back to see if it sped up and got better during my absence. Sadly the answer each time was no. At this point I am abandoning my efforts and moving on to something else in my ever-expanding 'to read' stack.
September 3, 2011
I really liked this book. This series is one of my favorites. Civil War Mystery.
This author's books are hard to find. I have to order them on-line as they are not stocked in any of the bookstores I frequent.
This author's books are hard to find. I have to order them on-line as they are not stocked in any of the bookstores I frequent.
April 4, 2016
For those that enjoy Civil War era novels you will certainly enjoy this one. Union officer Major Abel Jones struggles to solve the riddle of Federal agents tortured to death. He must struggle to solve the crimes through fear, lies, sedition, seances and even his own past.
January 12, 2017
Wonderful historical fiction revolving around the civil war -- set in the finger lakes of NY in early 1862. The voice of the 1st person narrator (Maj Able Jones) is unique, engaging, and fascinating. This novel is a joy to read
April 19, 2008
A Civil War mystery in which Abel Jones, a Union officer and government agent, must discover and destroy a Fenian uprising. Fresh writing and writing.
April 15, 2008
More from Able Jones. Always worth the read
May 14, 2012
Just keeps getting better. Already a hundred pages into the 3rd in the series.
April 21, 2014
I loved the first book in the series, but I did not enjoy this story. Plot was muddled, and I didn't want to read "let it bide" one more time.
August 16, 2015
Right up there with the rest of the books in this series.
March 28, 2011
Good series fiction
April 2, 2013
Loved this book! I have read all of Owen Parry's books and love the character, Abel Jones.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews