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Harrison Raines has been a sore disappointment to his plantation owner father. His father's 21st birthday present to Raines was a slave, Caesar Augustus, who had been Raines' childhood playmate. Raines promptly went to Richmond and took out the necessary papers to emancipate Caesar Augustus, thus enraging his father. Then, instead of joining the ranks of the Confederacy at the outbreak of the Civil War, Raines crossed the Potomac to Washington, D.C. and became an operative with the Pinkerton Agency on behalf of the Union. Raines has returned to Richmond to learn the status of the refurbished ironclad, the Merrimack, now christened the Virginia. It is imperative that the Union know how close to operational the ironclad is. With Raines comes Caesar Augustus, "impersonating" a slave, so that he will have Raines' protection. Raines' mission widens when he discovers that the Confederacy is considering conscription -- white men as soldiers, black men as laborers -- news he must get to the Union. After an evening of snooping (using the familial name to become familiar with Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee), Raines returns to his hotel room to find a woman hanged there. She had been his first love, and they were betrothed but broke up over the issue of slavery. Unfortunately, Caesar Augustus discovered her body and is naturally suspected of the crime. Raines must find out the real killer in order to free Caesar Augustus. Life is further complicated by an actress who is a Confederate spy and whom Raines helped to get out of Washington, D.C., on Lincoln's orders, because Lincoln did not want the Union to hang a woman. Perhaps the most heroic character is Elizabeth Van Lew, a real person who emancipated all the family's slaves upon her husband's death and who is openly an Abolitionist in the capital of the Confederacy. I don't want to give anything away about Caesar Augustus' death in prison, but Van Lew is responsible for a happy ending. Raines is a flawed but engaging character. He is gambler and womanizer, but his desire for justice rules his life. Kilian is excellent at creating suspense, as Raines is living on the edge -- barely ahead of those who might expose him and who are determined to see Caesar Augustus executed, whether or not his guilt is proven. Richmond during the Civil War reminds one of tales of Vienna after World War II -- a place of betrayal, retribution, romance -- and uncertainty.
Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Devine, January 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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