Unholy Fire

A Civil War whodunit by former US congressman and second-novelist Mrazek (Stonewall’s Gold, 1999) describes a combat veteran’s 1863 quest for a prostitute’s murderer. John “Kit” McKittredge is a Harvard senior when the Civil War breaks out, and he enlists with patriotic fervor. Commissioned as a lieutenant, Kit sees action early, leading a platoon at Ball’s Bluff. Wounded in the stomach, Kit is soused with laudanum by doctors who (lacking antibiotics) fully expect him to die within days. Incredibly, he survives, though not without gaining a solid addiction. In recognition of his valor, the army offers him a noncombatant post, assigning him to the Provost Marshall’s office, responsible for investigating crimes and corruption. There’s plenty of both, for the unprecedented war budget has brought every species of swindler, embezzler, and common thief to Washington, D.C., along with more whores than Baptists and a government staffed by cutthroat opportunists who could make Machiavelli blush. On his first assignment, investigating war profiteers who supplied defective artillery to the army, Kit is bluntly warned (first by a mysterious stranger, then by a congressman) not to dig too deep