This novel is about the Civil War in the United States, raging in 1861–1865 and taking hundreds of thousands of human lives. “So what?” an annoyed reader might exclaim. In that case, why such an entertaining title for the book? Are clever writers and money-grubbing publishers trying again to cash in on a supposed fun hook? How can something “secret” be a well-known event?
And it turns out it can be…