A Union general's senseless murder is swiftly cloaked in lies and the evidence points to Irish laborers struggling to find a place in their new homeland. But the turmoil of war hides layers of dangerous secrets, and a Welsh immigrant nursing wounds old and new must overcome ancient hatreds to honor justice.
Thousands of Irishmen serve valiantly on the fields of battle, yet others deny that the South's rebellion is any concern of theirs. Amid maddening rumors and lingering superstitions, an effort to draft more Irishmen into the army leads to a violent confrontation. A local death threatens to become an international crisis.
At the request of President Lincoln, Union Major Abel Jones follows the trail of guilt from a windswept graveyard to the killing fields of Fredericksburg -- and soon learns that no one really wants to know the truth behind the general's murder. While heartbreaking revelations tear at his own family, Jones must work his way through encounters with Irish secret societies and past the distrust of men and women for whom starvation and oppression are recent memories. Political agendas disregard mere facts, and even the dead general might not be the man he first seemed.
In this gripping novel, Washington intrigue and industrial corruption collide with hints of rural witchcraft and the sorrows of political exile. A wandering beauty who may be mad, a priest with an unbearable secret, revolutionary assassins, and a genuine Irish hero, Meagher of the Sword, are but a few of the vivid characters who rise full-blooded from these pages. At once swift of pace and poetic, ablaze with suspense and rich with insights into the human heart, Bold Sons of Erin continues Owen Parry's tradition of bringing America's past to life with unrivaled storytelling ability, extraordinary historical accuracy, and a disarming sense of our common humanity.
