"The Jackal's Mistress" | Reviewed by Chris Stuckenschneider

I became a Chris Bohjalian fan in 2003 with the publication of “The Buffalo Soldier.” Since then, this talented writer has churned out novel after novel but his craft has never suffered. His books are set in varied locations, his plots as diverse as his characters, who he admits he just turns loose, letting them lead him where they will.

“The Jackal’s Mistress” is Bohjalian’s newest, a Civil War adventure and sort-of love story set in 1864 in Berryville Virginia., not far from Harper’s Ferry. Libby Steadman lives outside Berryville in a remote farmhouse and runs a grist mill with help from freeman Joesph and his wife Sally. The grain they turn into flour is important to Confederate soldiers camped nearby. Also living with Libby is her sassy niece, Jubilee, whose mother died in an accident and whose father is fighting for the Confederacy.

For more than a year, Libby hasn’t heard from her husband, a member of the Second Virginia, captured at Gettysburg and believed to be dead or held prisoner in a Yankee camp. Though she’s a born Southerner, Libby has great fondness for Joseph and Sally, who are a big help on the homestead.

Joseph puts himself in harm’s way when he saves Libby from being raped by a guerilla with Mosby’s Rangers, who breaks into Libby’s home. Joseph and Libby bury his body in the woods, concerned that others in Mosby’s group will come looking for him, creating tension that increases when Libby takes in an injured Yankee because it’s the right, moral thing to do.

Union Captain Jonathan Weybridge, a native Vermonter, is fighting for the Yankees in Virginia when he’s badly hurt by a Minie ball that shatters his leg and destroys two fingers on his left hand. His leg has to be amputated and for days Jonathan clings to life, as battles rage on around him, until his company has no choice but to leave as quickly as possible. Two young soldiers are supposed to stay with the captain but they desert him, leaving him to die, a death he might welcome because of the horrific pain he’s in, complicated by a lack of food and water.

When Libby and Joseph happen onto the captain, who’s been left in an abandoned shack two miles from Libby’s home, Libby can’t harden her heart to his plight. With Joseph’s help she transports the captain in a wagon, making a place for him in her home, and in the process endangering herself and the people she’s trying to protect. As the captain regains his health, he spends time with Libby, though both are married they’re sick with worry about their mates and find solace in one another, a deep affection slowly beginning to form.

“The Jackal’s Mistress” is powerful in its own right, but it’s even more impressive to learn that the novel is loosely based on a true story that occurred during the Civil War in which a Southern woman took in a Yankee officer, nursing him and being rewarded by trading the officer for her husband when the war drew to a close. For years after, the two families were good friends.

Abundant research went into the writing of this amazing story, a total pleasure that commands your attention from first page to last.

Buy the Book.