Her uncle, a well-respected doctor, is suspected of body-snatching, and her countrymen turn into rabble-rousers thirsty for blood and money. During the course of the book, Emily loses her mother to consumption (her father has died in the war) and sees the Surratt family torn apart (Johnny flees to Canada, his mother is thrown in jail and eventually hanged as an accomplice). The main character, 14-year-old Emily Pigbush, has a crush on neighbor Johnny Surratt, one of the men accused of abetting John Wilkes Booth in President Lincoln's assassination. As her readers will expect, the plot is fast-paced and dramatic, with a wealth of interesting background information. Rinaldi's (The Second Bend in the River) latest excursion into American history is set at the close of the Civil War and focuses on the struggles doctors faced in obtaining cadavers to do research.
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