The widow spy A novel

Beginning on August 23, 1861, a consequential Civil War battle is being fought inside a well-appointed home in Washington, DC. On one side are former mill girl Kate Warne, Secret Service head Allan Pinkerton's first female detective, and her fellow agents. On the other is socialite Rose Greenhow, a crafty widow credited with siphoning intelligence that won the Battle of First Manassas for the Confederacy. As Rose sits under house arrest with her youngest daughter, Kate must quickly locate her cipher key before the rebels discover Rose has been compromised. Their mental showdown feels increasingly taut as Kate attempts to soften the widow and exploit her weaknesses while concealing her own secrets, such as her Irish origins and forbidden attraction to her Black colleague. The characters are richly layered and the mid-nineteenth-century atmosphere completely tangible. Campisi (Sin Eater, 2020) makes an exciting return to historical fiction with a new tale of moral quandaries and the hidden talents of women as Kate revisits episodes from her traumatic past and ponders what type of person she wants to become.

Campisi follows up Sin Eater with a gripping and richly imagined mystery set during the American Civil War. At the outset, Pinkerton investigator Kate Warne--the real-life first female detective in America--captures Confederate spy Rose Greenhow, who holds the cipher key that could end the Civil War. After taking Rose captive, Kate is tasked with gaining the woman's trust and handing over the key to Union forces before Confederate leaders learn Rose has been compromised and change it. It's no easy task: Kate and Rose are at odds over every conceivable political issue from slavery to class relations, and Kate worries that her illicit interracial romance with Black Pinkerton agent John Scobell could make her vulnerable to blackmail. In the novel's fierce and frank first-person narration, Kate tries to crack her captive and poignantly reflects on her own personal history, including the death of her immediate family, her escape from starvation in Ireland, and the brutality of factory work in America (which she experienced before meeting Allan Pinkerton and becoming an investigator). With piercing prose and a nimble balance of emotion and suspense, Campisi expertly melds the best of historical mystery with top-shelf literary fiction. Amy Stewart and Sarah Waters fans, take note: this is a must-read. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Susanna Lea Assoc. (Apr.)

Chapter One - One - AUGUST 23, 1861 I'm standing on the front step beside Detective Allan Pinkerton, head of Abraham Lincoln's secret service, when our suspect answers the door. She's a handsome woman, somewhere on the far side of forty. Tall, like me, but with an olive complexion, dark hair, and slim build. Dressed in black mourning silk. Does she know who we are? She knows enough to take a paper from her pocket and shove it into her mouth. Right there in front of us, she tries to swallow the damn thing. I lunge over to fish it out. When a suspected spy starts eating messages, you know you've found something. Pinkerton pushes me toward her. I'm scrabbling at her lips, trying to get my fingers on the evidence. He pushes us both deeper into her house and shuts the front door behind us, so no curious neighbors get to talking. The suspect, the widow Mrs. Rose O'Neal Greenhow, is still trying her damnedest to chew up the paper. I can't get to it. She'll bite off a finger, if she catches one. Pinkerton is hissing directions from the side. He's not a patient man, my employer. Finally, he shoves me aside and gets in there himself. He cradles the woman's head in his hands just like a baby and jams a sausage-sized finger in through the space of a pulled back tooth. And he does it: He pries the woman's jaws open and fishes out the message. Well, half the message. "You must be iron-willed." He waves the soggy mess of chewed paper in my face. The widow is a bent heap of fury beside him. There's enough of the letter left to see it's enciphered. And there's hardly a doubt it's a Confederate cipher. We found our spy. About two minutes later, Pinkerton puts the widow under house arrest in her own parlor. It's an incredible piece of luck finding our evidence so quickly. But that's just the beginning of the work. Our job now is to get the woman's cipher key. Most people cannot commit an entire cipher to memory, so they keep a key written down. We find that, we can intercept Confederate intelligence regarding their next moves. But the moment we put Widow Greenhow under arrest, the clock starts ticking. We've got a narrow window of time before anyone discerns she's been compromised and the cipher gets changed. Now, we've exercised extraordinary care in the widow's capture. And Pinkerton has given orders to sequester any persons who come knocking at her door, be it the milk boy or some big bug, so as to keep word of the woman's arrest within these walls. As long as the widow doesn't start sending smoke signals, we've got ourselves a window. How long? Pinkerton estimates it at about two days. We could end the whole war right here from this house. That's our aim. Excerpted from The Widow Spy: A Novel by Megan Campisi All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.