Death and Glory by Will Thomas ~ a Review

by Donna Huber

Private Enquiry agent Cyrus Barker, along with his partner Thomas Llewelyn, has a long, accomplished history - he's taken on cases for Scotland Yard, the Foreign Office, and even the crown itself, fulfilling them all with great skill and discretion. None of those cases, however, are as delicate and complicated as the one laid before him by a delegation of men who, thirty years before, fought for the Confederacy during the American Civil War. 

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

April 2024; Minotaur Books; 978-1250864925
audio, ebook, print (304 pages); historical mystery

Death and Glory is the 15th book in the Barker & Llewelyn mystery series but you don't have to read the previous books in the series. This is only the 4th book I've read in the series.

The series is set in 1890s London so I was surprised when men claiming to be Confederate soldiers appear in Barker's office.

While my American history classes spent a great deal of time on the Civil War and Reconstruction, I realized I knew ( or remember) very little about what happened to high-ranking Confederate soldiers. The men claiming to be Confederate soldiers have been living in Cuba, Mexico, and Brazil. I had to look it up, but apparently, about 10,000 Confederates left the U.S. after the war and lived abroad in mostly Brazil but also in Cuba, Mexico, and Central America. 

I've never considered what other countries were doing during the Civil War or if either side sought allies from other nations.

In Death and Glory, these men claim that a treaty was signed during the war which among other things gave the South a battleship. Nearly 30 years later, they have shown up to claim the ship that they had paid for. The mystery that Barker and Llewelyn are trying to solve is multi-pronged: who are these men really, why do they want a battleship, and is all of this subterfuge concealing a larger plan.

While Barker and Llewlyn are interesting characters, the Southerners are quite colorful characters. 

I mentioned in my review of Heart of the Nile that I really like listening to this series as an audiobook. And I wish I had received the audiobook for this book because I think it would have been fun to hear the narrator do the Confederate southern drawl. 

If you like to solve the mystery then this isn't quite the novel for that. It is more like the reader is along for the ride and should enjoy the company of the characters. For me, I do enjoy being with the characters. We get to see as much of their personal life as we do their work life. 

If you like historical mysteries with great characters, then this is the book for you.

Buy Death and Glory at Amazon

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.

 

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