John Brown's Body: An Alphonso Clay Mystery of the Civil War

Jack Martin

Jun 2010 · Fireship Press

About this ebook

An act of treason, a mysterious murder-and Grant's campaign in the West is finished unless the mystery can be solved. The Mississippi Valley, 1863. - The Confederate fortress town of Vicksburg is the lynch-pin holding together the eastern and western Confederacy. Major General Ulysses S. Grant is tasked by Washington to capture Vicksburg, giving the Union complete control of the Mississippi, splitting the Confederacy and dooming it to ultimate extinction. However, there is treason in Grant's army-treason at the highest levels. His most secret plans are being leaked to the Confederacy; plans known only to a small group of high-ranking staff. But a security officer named John Brown has discovered something-something he will not entrust to any of Grant's officers. Instead, he frantically telegraphs for a pre-war friend, Captain Alphonso Clay, to come out West immediately; then Brown locks himself into a riverboat cabin, refusing to see anyone. Clay, a Union-loyal Kentuckian from a wealthy slave-owning family, responds to the call. He arrives at Grant's headquarters to find Brown has been murdered. Accompanying Grant's army on its march, racing the calendar, Clay frantically tries to discover the truth, knowing that if he does not solve the crime, Grants campaign will be at an end and the United States will cease to be.

Ratings and reviews

Best Civil War book ever! Jack Martin has you hooked from the first sentence in John Brown's Body, the first in a series of 4 Alphonso Clay mysteries. I plan on buying all of them. The first 3 are out and I cannot wait to get the other two. What a gripping story teller! What makes it so fantastic is that he uses real people and events to create this new twist in history. I could not put it down! — CJ Loiacono