A New York Times BestsellerAcclaimed for his bestselling thriller series, James Lee Burke makes a brilliantly successful departure with this epic story of love, hate, and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the center of the novel are Burke's own ancestors: Robert Perry, from a slave-owning family of wealth and privilege; and Willie Burke, born of poor Irish immigrants, as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite their personal an political conflicts, both men join the Confederate army. Facing ordeal by fire, they're determined not to back down in their commitment to their beliefs, to their friends, and to the abolitionist woman with whom both are infatuated.