Serpent's Compromise

Pulaski Saga #6

by Robert F. Lackey

Ben and Sonja Pulaski, the Maryland husband and wife team stealing slaves and smuggling them north, are joined by their sons Isaac and Aaron in a growing network reaching deep into the South and into Washington. Rage explodes in Congress, in the press and into the streets of America when the grip on slavery tightens under new federal laws; and hatred spills into Bleeding Kansas in another failed compromise.

314 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 23, 2019

About the author

ROBERT F. LACKEY draws from his experiences living in 38 locations in the United States and Europe. His longest location was in Havre de Grace, Maryland, which provided him the perspective and understanding to begin his Pulaski Saga. For much of his years in Havre de Grace, he spent many weekend afternoons exploring the remnants of the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal. He fell in love with the little town sitting at the mouth of the Susquehanna River and head of the Chesapeake Bay. Among the many historic themes coexisting within the nearby sites and lanes, the Canal Era of the 19th century drew the author’s attention first. Stepping outside technical writing to complete his first novel, 'Pulaski’s Canal', Robert began a family story that has blossomed into a family saga. 'Blood on the Chesapeake' is the first of several sequels to follow 'Pulaski’s Canal'. His third Pulaski novel 'Raven's Risk' is due out September 1, 2017. He is now conducting research in Georgetown, South Carolina, for his next novel's locations, for his fourth Pulaski book, tentatively titled 'Kingdoms in the Marsh' (due out in 2018). Robert plans additional sequels to follow the Pulaski family through the mid to late 1800’s.

Reviews

[Diane Bassette · Rating 5 out of 5]

As an American Civil War living historian for the past 20 years I’ve had to “live in the time-period,” or as some say, we are in the first person. When I first started the suggestion is made to learn about the time, who I was in the 1860s, my family, background, and how it related to the War.
Having studied the Civil War from high school through college I had a basic understanding of some of the “essential issues” that shaped the whys and wherefores of the Civil War.
Bob Lackey’s sixth volume in his saga about the Pulaski family of the area near Havre de Grace, Maryland gives a well written view of what went on in our country, North, South and West in the ten-years leading to the 1860s.
Ben and Sonja Pulaski have been involved in assisting slaves in their escape from the south via their shipping vessels. Some of those vessels are canal boats, retrofitted to assist their mission, and others are open-water ships. Over the years they have moved “merchandise” including military goods along the east coast and Gulf of Mexico.
Through his extensive research and descriptive writing Bob places us on the vessels, in the US Congress, in “Bloody Kansas” as well the meeting places of all walks of life.
With a wonderful mix of concise descriptions, well organized dialogue, and a few well-chosen quotes from published sources of the time, we are present when a senator is attacked for his choice to be an abolitionist, as neighbors attack each other in the Kansas Territory, or the dining room when a protagonist, (I’m one of several readers who renamed her “The Bitch”) receives her just reward. Do you know how to get blood stains off a wooden floor?
Over the course of the pages we learn about the slave catchers in the border states. In these years they took whomever they could without regard to slave or free status. We are on the canal path and wharfs to see their brutal tactics. We also see and hear the efforts of the Pulaski’s to defend and protect those same men and women they are assisting.
The story is neither sugar coated nor always violent. We watch as the main characters go about their lives, heartbreaks and reunions included. I’m looking forward to receiving the next volume as war explodes in our country, a time most of us are more familiar with.

[alan newhouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great history well told

Anyone who likes good historical fiction
Also Maryland's struggle with slavery will find this enlightening since md is now a northern state!