The Shiloh Sisters
Michael Killian
Berkley, Jan 2004, $13.00, 374 pp.
ISBN 0425194035

The Rebels surprised the Union troops at Shiloh and forced General Ulysses S. Grant to give ground until he was able to counter their offensive. In the middle of the battle May Abbott, the wife of a Congressman, receives a pass to go through the lines to see her twin sister in the Confederate held town of Corinth. After a very bloody battle, the Confederate troops retreat. Congressman Abbott puts pressure on General Grant to find out what happened to his wife.

Harrison Raines, Union Spy in Pinkerton's Secret Service, is passing through Corinth and makes his way to Shiloh where he gives General Grant conformation on what is happening in the town. Grant assigns Raines the tasks of finding out what has become of the congressman's wife and it doesn't take too long to discover that she and her sister were both murdered. Now he has to find out who did it and why without getting killed.

Nobody writes an American Civil War mystery better than Michael Killian. Readers will feel they are witnessing first hand the actual battle scene and its aftermath. The hero is a patriotic unorthodox spy whose unusual methods always seen to yield results. The romance between the protagonist and actress Louise Devere, who is a Union spy, a confederate agent, or both, provides a positive counterpoint to the atrocities of wartime.

Harriet Klausner