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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My paperhanging boss

Apologies are due to my old boss. His name wasn't Frank Batchelder, as the book says, it was John Snodgrass. I guess the author thought people would snicker at a name like Snodgrass. I don't know where the author got that business about John's son dying of measles in camp. I guess that's more "dramatic license." John was a dear friend who always looked out for me. Here's what he said on my behalf when I was trying to get my disability pension increased because of my war wound and chronic dysentery:

I have known Patrick S. Tinen since 1859 and am satisfied to the best of my knowledge that he had no disease whatever before entering the United States service in 1861. He has been employed by me most of the time since 1865, up to present time, August 1882 doing canvassing work and attending to my work generally (paperhanging). He has been unable for weeks and months at times to attend to any business on account of wound in right arm and chronic diarrhea. I have seen the wound and know the other from long dealings and acquaintance.

And by now you're probably wondering why John Snodgrass kept me employed all those years even though I couldn't work. Well I'll tell you the secret: John was my brother-in-law, my sister Mary's husband. Hey, like it says in the book, brothers-in-law ought to be good for something.

-- PST
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