Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Based on a true story from the authors family history,
Jarrettsville begins in 1869, just after Martha Jane Cairnes has shot and killed her fiancé, Nicholas McComas, in front of his Union cavalry militia as they were celebrating the anniversary of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.
To find out why she murdered him, the story steps back to 1865, six days after the surrender, when President Lincoln has just been killed by John Wilkes Booth. Booth belongs to the same Rebel militia as Marthas hot-headed brother Richard, who has gone missing along with Booth. Martha is loyal to her brother but in love with Nicholas McComas, a local hero of the Union cause, and their affair is fraught with echoes of the bloody conflict just ended.
The story is set in Northern Maryland, six miles below the Mason-Dixon line, where brothers literally fought on opposing sides, and former slave-owners live next door to abolitionists and freed men. Such tension proves key to Marthas motives in killing the man she loves, and why astonishingly she is soon acquitted by a jury of her peers, despite more than fifty eyewitnesses to the crime.
Synopsis
A novel of crime and passion in post-Civil War Maryland, based on a true story, from a "wonderfully talented" author (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times).
Winner of the Michael Shaara Prize for Excellence in Civil War Fiction Based on true events from the author's family history, Jarrettsville begins in 1869. Martha Jane Cairnes has just shot and killed her fianc , Nicholas McComas, in front of his Union cavalry militia as they were celebrating the anniversary of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.
To find out why she murdered him, the story steps back to 1865, six days after the surrender, when President Lincoln has just been killed by John Wilkes Booth. Booth belongs to the same Rebel militia as Martha's hot-headed brother, who has gone missing along with the assassin. Martha is loyal to her brother, but in love with Nicholas McComas, a local hero of the Union cause--and their affair is fraught with echoes of the bloody conflict just ended.
Set six miles below the Mason-Dixon line, in a time when brothers fought on opposing sides and former slave-owners lived next door to abolitionists and freedmen, this is a compelling story rich with passion and tragedy, history and suspense.