Civil Blood: A Civil War Mystery by Ann McMillan

This is a book you’ll have trouble putting down,” said the Richmond Times-Dispatch of Ann McMillan’s Dead March, the opening installment in a series that blends vivid suspense, elegant period detail, richly developed characters, and the political and cultural tensions of its time. Set against the backdrop of 1860s Richmond, Virginia, the adventures of Narcissa Powers, a well-to-do young widow-turned-war nurse, and Judah Daniel, a freed slave and herbalist, are compelling reading for Civil War buffs and lovers of historical fiction. Civil Blood, the third book, opens in the spring of 1862 as the war escalates and troops move in for battle. But in Richmond, an even greater threat looms: smallpox. As Narcissa, Judah, and their friend, the British journalist Brit Wallace, soon suspect, this is more than microbial contagion. It is a deadly crime, a plague intentionally planted on “tainted” money, and they must race to halt a killer more lethal than the cannons on the blood-soaked fields of combat.