Books › Copperhead
Copperhead
First published 1994 · 720 pages
A tense, high-stakes plunge into the treacherous world of Civil War espionage where loyalty is a deadly game.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like walking a tightrope over a battlefield. It delivers a propulsive, high-stakes experience steeped in the gritty, treacherous atmosphere of the American Civil War. The mood is thick with danger and paranoia, trapping the reader in a claustrophobic web of espionage, bluffing, and shifting allegiances. The prose is direct and action-driven, anchoring the suspense in grounded historical detail without losing its relentless momentum. It explores the heavy emotional toll of divided loyalties and the brutal cost of survival in a winner-takes-all conflict. This is a perfect match for readers who devour fast-paced military historical fiction where the battles are fought just as fiercely in the shadows of secret commands as they are on the front lines.
- Mood
- treacherous
- paranoid
- high-stakes
- shadowy
- Tone
- tense
- gritty
- suspenseful
- serious
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- divided loyalties · the cost of war · survival and betrayal · shifting allegiances
- The writing
- Direct, action-oriented, and historically grounded, designed to maintain relentless suspense.
- The arc
- A tense journey from desperate isolation to high-stakes deception, culminating in a morally costly survival.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave fast-paced military historical fiction laced with the paranoia of espionage and morally compromised protagonists.
Content notes
- war violence
- imprisonment
- betrayal
About the book
A copperhead is a turncoat – a northerner who sympathises with the South. Captain Nate Starbuck, forced out of his beloved Legion by the enmity of its founder, General Washington Faulconer, becomes caught up in a dangerous double game of espionage.A copperhead is a turncoat – a northerner who sympathises with the South. Captain Nate Starbuck, forced out of his beloved Legion by the enmity of its founder, General Washington Faulconer, becomes caught up in a dangerous double game of espionage.He is given no choice but to travel from a prison cell in Richmond, Virginia, to the secret centre of the high Northen command in a desperate attempt to thwart Yankee strategy which threatens to overwhelm the South.Starbuck plays a difficult and complex game of bluff and betrayal in a winner-takes-all effort to save his own life and return to the Legion – but at a high cost to his personal and professional loyalties as a friend and a man of war.
Description from Open Library.
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