The Bayou Road

The love between a Union officer and a Southern lady is tested by their opposing loyalites in this Civil War mystery from America’s Agatha Christie.

April 1863, New Orleans. With the city occupied by the Union Army, Marcy Chastain has no choice but to accept billeting a federal officer in her home. She just never expected her uninvited guest would be Major John Farrell. Before the war, they met socially in Washington and shared a dance. Despite their mutual attraction, Marcy’s arranged betrothal to another man forbid them from pursuing a future together.

As Marcy’s feelings for John are reawakened, the men in her life prey on her Southern sympathies. Her fiancé Armand Ortega, a wounded Confederate soldier, demands she refuse to house the Yankee. Her cousin, a spy with the Defenders, wants Marcy to use her acquaintanceship with the major to uncover the Union’s plans to attack Vicksburg.

But then Armand is fatally wounded, living long enough to name John as his murderer. In her heart, Marcy knows John is innocent. Now, Marcy is torn between protecting the man she loves and betraying him on behalf of the Confederate cause, even as Armand’s killer roams free . . .

“One of the most popular writers of our era . . . she must be doing something right. Here it is easy to see what that something is: She knows how to tell an entertaining story.” —The San Diego Union-Tribune