Rebel Belles

From award-winning novelist and historian Peg A. Lamphier comes the third installment of her Civil War spy novels, Rebel Belles. Just back from a rescue mission to New Orleans, Pinkerton detective Kate Warne confront her greatest challenge yet, the first major battle of the Civil War. Her shock at the carnage at Bull Run turns to rage when she learns the Rose Greenhow's spy ring contributed to the Union Army's disastrous defeat. Kate and her Uncle Juba, disguised as an English Lord and his slave, travel deep into the heart of the Confederacy to learn the tangled web of the Greenhow network. A series of adventures and misadventures lead them to the heart of the Confederate Army's largest camp and the answers they seek. Or at least some of them. Meanwhile, fresh from her intelligence gathering triumph, Rose Greenhow recruits Belle Boyd, an audacious seventeen-year-old rebel girl who has already killed a Union soldier. Rose knows better than anyone how effective lady spies can be, particularly ones that learn to manipulate men with their feminine wiles. Back in Washington Kate, Juba, Allan Pinkerton, Hattie, Louisa and a band of street children set out to trap Rose Greenhow and female spy network, only to discover Greenhow appears to have informants in the highest echelons of Lincoln's government. Captain George Hazzard, frustrated at being held back from the Battle of Bull Run, joins Kate in her search for answers. Kate struggles to sort out her feelings for the dashing artillery captain, finding herself too overwhelmed by her hatred of Rose Greenhow to think clearly about anything except revenge. Revenge not only for the thousands of Union soldiers who died at Bull Run but for Juba's kidnapping and sale into slavery. Kate swears she'll see Rose Greenhow hung for treason, even as Juba, Hattie, Hazzard and Mr. Lincoln point out that hanging the poisonous Rose would set a dangerous precedent for spies on both sides of the war. Worse, they say Rose Greenhow isn't all that different from Kate. Kate knows better. Or thinks she does."