Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 7, 1994 TAG: 9407310002
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by ROBERT HILLDRUP
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
\ The Valley of Virginia is well-soaked in Civil War blood, blood spilled in the time-tested manner wars always provide. But what if, author Kirk Mitchell wonders, some of that blood was spilled in a private madness of murder aimed at the Valley's most innocent, the pacifist Dunkers who sought simply to live in peace?
That is the problem faced by Surgeon Colonel Simon Wolfe in 1864 as the Union barbarian Phil Sheridan wages war not only against the Confederate army, but against the people and the Valley itself, burning, looting and pillaging in a manner worthy of the infamous Sherman. Mitchell sprinkles his
novel with striking, memorable characters, beginning with Wolfe, the South Carolina-bred, Harvard-educated Jew whose father is a member of Jefferson Davis' Confederate Cabinet. Wolfe, who lost an arm at Antietam, rescues a Dunker girl from one of the murder scenes, but the trauma has left her unable to speak of the horror she has experienced.
The plot weaves and twists at times, and runs in circles like a riderless one-eyed cavalry horse. Early on, Wolfe recognizes that the murders are probably the work of a madman, rather than random savagry, and fingers of guilt point not only toward Sheridan's staff, including George Armstrong Custer, but toward Sheridan himself.
The portraits of actual characters of history are well and interestingly drawn. John Singleton Mosby, the Confederate raider, comes off very well.
There is some particularly fascinating writing about 19th century military medicine, and the beginnings of understanding about mental illness, and the role of both physical and emotional trauma can play therein.
It is always necessary in a book of particular regional significance such as this, to look for errors in Valley georgraphy, language or history. Mitchell does a good job of avoiding those.
The war is there, of course, and Mitchell writes interestingly and well about it, too. But most of all, this is a good mystery story, and the character of Simon Wolfe is so freshly and provocatively drawn that one can only hope his fictional career will survive the approach of Appomatox.
\ Robert Hilldrup is a Richmond writer and former newspaperman.
by CNB