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At the height of the Civil War, the Confederates come up with a bold, desperate plan to free rebel prisoners held in the North and use them to help turn the tide of the war

This novel deals with a little-known episode of the Civil War: the Northwest Conspiracy, a plot concocted by Confederate agents and Northern Copperheads to free rebel prisoners in Chicago, force the upper Middle West out of the Union, and thus end the war. Brown assembles some interesting characters, but his plot, like the Northwest Conspiracy itself, crackles for a while and then sputters out. Unlike another, more resonant novel of Civil War espionage, John C. Batchelor's American Falls (LJ 9/15/85), there is no progressive constricting of suspense into a dramatic denouement. Nor do the characters fully develop the themes of misplaced loyalty, duplicity, and betrayal they are meant to dramatize. For Civil War buffs who'll appreciate the richly textured background and overlook a less than absorbing story. Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, Mass. Copyright 1987 Cahners Business Information.