By J.D. Solomon

April, 1898 — As America steamrolls toward war with Spain, Major Patrick Sherman Tinen, an aging Union veteran of the Civil War and a hero at Gettysburg, is sleepwalking through old age at the mammoth National Soldiers’ Home in Elizabeth City, Virginia. But then Tinen’s son, a failed Klondike prospector, is murdered after a clumsy attempt to blackmail one of Philadelphia’s most powerful financiers.

Conducting the investigation is the popular and politically ambitious county sheriff, Jed Roberts. Although Roberts is the son of a brave Confederate officer killed in Pickett’s Charge, the sheriff has no interest in the past. His focus is on the unlimited future offered by the new century, and he is already planning a run for Congress in the keystone year of 1900. First, though, he must solve this horrendous crime; if he fails, his promising political future will never get off the ground.

Meanwhile, the powerful financier behind the murder has troubles of his own. Decades of financial double-dealing are finally catching up to him; creditors are closing in and his respectable name is in jeopardy. Out of options, he decides to turn one last time to a dark business he learned from his grandfather years ago—the buying and selling of human beings.

Sheriff Roberts enlists Tinen’s help in tracing the crime to Philadelphia, where he gets unexpected assistance from the major’s estranged daughter. There they will come to terms with the ruthless financier, who has ordered his allies to stop the investigation at all costs.

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Anniversary of my death


I died 87 years ago today, at age 86, so now I have been dead longer than I was alive. You would have thought the cause of death might have related to the dysentery that plagued me for my entire life after the Civil War, but it was a tumor in my neck that did me in. My granddaughter, Margaret Saxe, and her husband paid the $115 it cost to bury me in Cumiskey Cemetery in Bradford County, Penna. (They were later reimbursed by the government.) I was the last surviving officer of the 69th PVI to pass away. Here is a picture of my grave. The dedicated lads of the modern-day 69th Pennsylvania reenactors provided me with this new headstone, as they've done for most of the other men of the regiment.

Also, this anniversary of my death is a fitting day to conclude this ghostwritten blog. It's been an honor and a pleasure telling you about my life. -- PST
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