The Bayou Road

by Mignon G. Eberhart

Does he remember her? Or is he seeing her with the eyes of a stranger?

The once-elegant world of the Old South has begun to vanish with the invasion of the Yankees. For beautiful Marcy Chastain, the challenge becomes more personal when she discovers that the handsome Yankee offiicer Major Farrell has been billeted at her plantation. They had met once before. Perhaps he will not remember her. But he does.

Suddenly everything begins to change. Marcy's explosive fiance is brutally murdered and Marcy herself is threatened. The murdered man's last words are "Major Farrell." When Marcy finds herself lying to protect Farrettl, she knows she is in trouble.

Genres: Mystery, Civil War, Gothic

254 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Mignon Good (1899-1996) was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. She studied at Nebraska Wesleyan University from 1917 to 1920. In 1923 she married Alanson C. Eberhart, a civil engineer. After working as a freelance journalist, she decided to become a full-time writer. In 1929 her first crime novel was published featuring 'Sarah Keate', a nurse and 'Lance O'Leary', a police detective. This couple appeared in another four novels. In the Forties, she and her husband divorced. She married John Hazen Perry in 1946 but two years later she divorced him and remarried her first husband. Over the next forty years she wrote a novel nearly every year. In 1971 she won the Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America. She also wrote many short stories featuring banker/amateur sleuth James Wickwire (who could be considered a precursor to Emma Lathen's John Putnam Thatcher) and mystery writer/amateur sleuth Susan Dare.

Reviews

[robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good old fashioned historical romance! Beautiful eye for detail, and what feels like a lot of research. Eberhart wrote a New Orleans under the heel, people making do. This isn't a book that really aims to make you feel the anger and misery of being occupied, of being enslaved, of losing relatives; it's a romance, and these are the ingredients that work to bring the lovers together.

It's charming; very different from her usual sort of mystery.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is labeled as a mystery, but it's actually a historical romance set during the American Civil War in April 1863 in New Orleans. There is a murder that remains unsolved until the end, but it's not the focus of the story and, since the murderer isn't even known to exist until the big reveal by the murderer's accomplice, it's not really a mystery the reader can solve.

It's a fairly typical "sweet" (no explicit sex) romance novel. Marcy, the heroine, is naive and not very perceptive but she is likable. The hero is gallant, competent, and true even when betrayed by Marcy. There was some nice detail about what living in New Orleans was like at the time, but there were some other (practical and historical) details that I know were wrong. Overall, it was an enjoyable novel.

[Belinda Snapko]

I love reading historical fiction, this book held my attention. It is about the South during the Civil War, spies & intrigue with a little bit of romance added in. It described the atmosphere in New Orleans, even the weather and fear of disease, felt like I was there.