Some great novels are painterly, and we sink into them like a warm bath, lost in a wholly different time and place. Others are hair-on-fire page-turners that leave us unable to do one single thing until the book is done. Lent has managed to combine both kinds into one brilliant work, creating tangible characters and a setting that is nearly palpable as well. My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishers and Net Galley for the DRC. The book will be released in early April 2015.

The novel opens with a scene of horrible violence; think of The Shawshank Redemption, or of Deliverance. Then we walk the string back to see whence it all came, and we see it from a variety of perspectives. Only then can we move forward to the conclusion.

Malcolm Hopeton has fought in the American Civil War, and refused to buy his way out of his duty to…