|
FADED COAT OF BLUE
by Owen Parry
Owen Parry's "feast of fine language" -- FADED COAT OF BLUE -- is a
"splendid . . . solid historical" mystery set amid the tumultous first
months of the Civil War.
Historical accuracy is of great importance to Owen Parry, who has drawn
on the accounts of hundreds of eyewitnesses and historians of the Civil
War era to create his mystery debut, FADED COAT OF BLUE set during the
Civil War. Avon will publish this book Publishers Weekly called in a
starred review a "feast of fine language" in hardcover October 5.
A novel of mystery and intrigue, FADED COAT OF BLUE introduces
protagonist Abel Jones, who is "modeled on the best qualities of such
famous detectives as Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes--with a little
Miss Marple thrown in" (Publishers Weekly). A Welsh immigrant and
already a veteran of Queen Victoria's wars, Jones plants his new
family's roots in America in the coal mining town of Pottsville,
Pennsylvania, far removed from the sights and sounds of battle.
However, when the war with the south begins, he sees it his patriotic
duty to serve and he soon finds himself in the Union Army, ultimately
becoming a confidential agent for General George McClellan. McClellan,
who would eventually lose a hard-fought battle for the presidency to
Abraham Lincoln, sends Jones on an expedition to investigate the murder
of a young Union officer. Within hours, Jones is caught up in a web of
deceit where questions lead not to answers, but to more deaths.
In preparation for writing his novel, Parry spent hours visiting
battle sites and walking the streets where the events in FADED COAT OF
BLUE take place. Set against a backdrop of mansions, battles, bordellos
and wartime conspiracies, FADED COAT OF BLUE reaches behind the mythic
figures and events of the Civil War to paint an iconoclastic portrait
of the United States at the most perilous time in its young history.
Through the eyes of Abel Jones, a determinedly moral man in a troubled
age, the reader becomes witness to a drama involving greedy
industrialists, corrupt generals, impoverished immigrants, impassioned
patriots, vicious politicians and the man many consider to be the
greatest American President ever, Abraham Lincoln.
The following is excerpted from:
FADED COAT OF BLUE
By Owen Parry
A SENTRY WITH TROUBLED BOWELS DISCOVERED THE BODY
A shock it must have been for the boy. He fired off his rifle and the
Good Lord knows what else, then ran up through the mud and fog to his
camp. I do not fault the lad, you understand. A soldier may be brave
easily enough with his comrades all about him. But a boy new to
service, touched with sickness and with the autumn chill upon him, such
a one might be forgiven a wallop of fear when he tumbles over a dead
officer in the pursuit of a winkle of privacy.
He should not have left his post, of course. That he should not have
done. But they were all the greenest of soldiers in those days. As
green as Gwent. Their days were full of drill and boasting, but well I
know the nights of a soldier's doubt. So I understand what the lad
felt, when he found the fairest of young men bedded down in the morning
dark with a bullet through his heart.
The rest arrived at a run, slopping down through the mire the storm had
left, and a dangerous pack they were. Lads in their unmentionables,
with cartridge boxes flapping and rifles poorly handled. Sergeants
bellowed. Company officers stumbled as they tried to run and draw on
their boots at the same time, tripping over swords they had not
mastered. Wet and weary they were. And some fool blasted a bugle.
I was not there. I am reconstructing events. But I have known many a
camp surprised by a creeping enemy or a stray cow, and there was always
a terrible confusion at the first. So I see them flushing out of their
tents at the sound of their sentinel's shot, eyes hungry for more light
and hearts in an uproar. I hear the voices of the weaker souls, crying
out that the Rebels were upon them, and aimless shots.
When no one fired back, they settled a bit, and the light rose. Young
Private Haney -- for that was his name -- blundered in leading a party down
to his discovery. They slipped in the muck of the hillside, where the
men had torn away each last twig for their campfires, and cursed
relentlessly, though profanity helps no man. At last, they reached the
body, down in the ravine, lying a pistol shot from the military road.
They told me the dead man looked like an angel fallen to earth, but
some of them were Irish and given to adorning language.
Later, they would all learn a muchness of death. More than any man
should know. But let that bide. Their regiment was too new to have been
at Bull Run, and the corpse was the first most of the men had seen. I
do not count those taken by typhoid and the like, for that is a natural
thing. This death was unnatural, and they knew it in their souls. The
newspapermen wrote that the dead officer possessed the countenance and
voice of a sweet, blessed saint. They had written that even before his
death, after which no commentary might be trusted. The young man was
known, and beloved, and should have lived long.
The soldiers who stood over his body were rugged lads from the
highlands of New York, hill farmers. They were not great readers of the
newspapers, and they certainly would not have left their fields for a
lecture on the evils of slavery. They were men who worked hard, tillers
with settled eyes and small expectations even in their youth, and their
shoulders were oxen. They admired the officer in his death, but could
not fix him with a name, and only stood about, uncertain what to do,
looking down on his beauty. He was not of their regiment, and not of
their world. Not even a sergeant dared touch his fine blue coat.
It took the officers to recognize him. Officers are terrible ones for
spotting the bad in a situation, and not a few soon make it worse. I
spoke with them later, in the course of my inquiry, and they told me
how it was. At first, they, too, caught the fear of an attack and went
about rallying the men--valiantly, to hear them tell it--but with the
climbing of the light Captain Steele made his way down to the party
gathered over the corpse. He thought he knew the face that lay before
him, but he had been a lawyer before he took up arms and went
cautiously about things. He waited until Major Campbell, the adjutant,
joined him.
Now Campbell was a great Scotsman, and they are devils in the morning,
see. He come down barking and settling his belt, sword in his hand. He
had been a politician in his county, and that sort is ever more given
to speech than to thought, although base calculation is not beyond
them. The men moved aside for their major, and he saw the still, white
face with its frame of golden hair, and brayed for all the world.
"Well, I'll be damned and resurrected," he said, and I am certain he
was half correct. "That's Anthony Fowler."
It was a death that changed my life.
I was not there, for my regimental days were behind me. I had failed my
new country at Bull Run, but a Welshman is a tenacious thing when you
spin him up and I was a clerking officer now. I missed my Mary Myfanwy
and longed to return to her, but duty is not a thing that will let go
of a man if he holds the least worth. When the call sounded through the
ward for men who could figure accounts, I stood to it. That I still
could do for our Union.
From FADED COAT OF BLUE by Owen Parry. Copyright (c) 1999 by Owen Parry
Reprinted by arrangement with Avon Books, a division of HarperCollins
Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
|
