On Secret Service
John Jakes is to historical American fiction what Stephen King is to  horror: a one-man industry. Jakes, the author of over 60 books, including the  eight-part Kent Family Chronicles, the North and South Trilogy, and innumerable  short stories of the American West, returns to his well-trod Civil War stomping  grounds in the engrossingOn Secret Service. The story of a war within a  war on various levels--the North v. the South, the Union's Pinkerton Detective  Agency v. the Confederacy's agent provocateurs, youthful idealism v. youthful  lust--On Secret Servicechronicles the lives and times of four young  Americans, from the war's early tremors in January 1861, through its bloody  conclusion, Lincoln's assassination, and John Wilkes Booth's murder in May  1865.The main players are Lon Price, the ardent abolitionist and rising-star  operative of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and Margaret Miller, the beautiful,  initially vacuous daughter of the South whose chief concern is that the war be  over quickly so as not to interfere with Washington's upcoming social season.  After a chance encounter in a Washington park, they are as repulsed by each  other's political views as they are drawn together by an undeniable physical  chemistry. As hostilities increase, the Pinkertons are pledged to the service of  the Union and Lon becomes, ipso facto, a charter member in the U.S. Secret  Service. When Margaret's stridently pro-slavery father is gunned down by a  Pinkerton operative at a clandestine "Secesh" meeting, Margaret throws off her  socialite mantle and vows revenge. She pledges allegiance to the South's most  notorious female spy, the wealthy, well-connected, and equally well-endowed Rose  Greenhow.A parallel relationship develops between Margaret's unlikely best friend, the  boyishly slight Hanna Siegel, a devout abolitionist who longs to prove herself  on the battlefield, and the conflicted Captain Frederick Dasher, late of West  Point, now of the First Virginia Cavalry, and protégé to Brigadier  General "Jeb" Stuart. Played out before a scrim of battles, lives, fortunes, and  reputations won and irreparably lost, Lon, Margaret, Hanna, and Fred  cat-and-mouse their way through America's costliest war.While the respective outcomes are somewhat predictable, what is not predictable  is the degree to which the reader is captivated by Jakes's encyclopedic command  of historical fact and his unmatched storytelling. The mingling of well-drawn  fictional characters with nicely fleshed-out historical figures raises to rare  levels circumstances that would, in lesser hands, seem mere contrivances.--Michael Hudson--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.