A New York Times Notable Book The last time Gawain Harper saw Cumberland, Mississippi, he was heading off to fight for the newly formed Confederate States of America-driven not by the cause that motivated so many others, but by love. The father of his beloved, Morgan Rhea, refused to allow her to be courted by a man who would not take up arms to defend the South. So Gawain joined the Mississippi Infantry-and now, three nightmarish years later, he is coming home. But postwar Cumberland is not the place Gawain so fondly remembered. An occupying force of Union soldiers keeps uneasy watch over the townspeople, including an erstwhile slave hunter and an albino gravedigger known as Old Hundred-and-Eleven. Meanwhile, a bloodthirsty former Confederate officer named King Solomon Gault is organizing a secret militia to drive the occupiers out and bring the entire region under his ruthless control. Before Gawain can marry Morgan and build their new life together, he must return to the world of violence and turmoil he has been so desperate to escape.
