J L Askew

Memphis private eye Race Warren goes to Alaska to find Ron Billings, a client's estranged husband.Surviving a deadly encounter with an assassin, Warren realizes someone doesn't want Billings found.Since the fugitive is key to the mystery, the private eye tracks Billings to a remote arctic village whereWarren meets Dr. Mark Dunbar, head of a science team studying ancient beliefs that may have led tothe bizarre killing of a native woman. Hoping to get information, Warren befriends the scientists as theyuncover a cult involved in animal shapeshifting, findings that fit with rumors the girl was killed by amythic wolf.Warren finds Billings, an ex-policeman searching for his daughter, Carrie, taken by Russian AndreyVolkov, head of a human trafficking ring. The private eye and ex-cop join forces, flying to a North Slopeoil town where the daughter is believed held in the sex trade. Failing to find Carrie, the two break outanother captive, Myra, who reports the daughter is held at the Russian's Anchorage estate. Warren andBillings flee south with the girl, battling Volkov henchmen along the way.At the village, the scientists learn a tribal shaman attempted a child sacrifice, but the boy miraculouslysurvives and is rescued from the wilds and placed in a covert foster home. Believing the child is still indanger, Dunbar seeks Warren's help as the team concludes their study and prepares to present theirfindings in Anchorage where they arrive just as Myra's rescuers deliver the girl safely to the authorities.In an assault on Volkov's mountain fortress, Billings frees his daughter then returns with her to Memphiswhile Warren stays behind for a final task. After he locates the boy and his caretaker in an old apartmentbuilding, Warren faces an unspeakable evil that has killed twice and is bent on destroying the child

During the War Between the States, the mountains of North Carolina were a hotbed of internecine strife where the phrase "brother against brother" truly applied. By late 1863, the Confederate government took measures to tighten control of the region, establishing the Western District of North Carolina under command of General Robert Vance, covering the area from the Blue Ridge Mountains westward to the borders of adjacent states.In less than four months, in the largest military operation conducted by the fledging department, General Vance was defeated and captured during an incursion into East Tennessee. Colonel John B. Palmer, Vance's replacement, had barely taken command at Asheville before Confederate General James Longstreet pulled his army from East Tennessee, leaving the Western District exposed and threatened by the growing Union presence at Knoxville.Palmer travelled to Richmond to plead for more troops, especially an artillery battery, to counter recent Federal raids where he was outgunned by Yankees armed with cannons. The Confederate high command found the Macbeth Light Artillery at Charleston, ordering the unit to Asheville where they arrived late May 1864. Hardened veterans of Second Manassas and Antietam, the Macbeth would see a different face of war in the mountains, fighting a different kind of enemy, often not in any uniform, native Southerners disloyal to the Confederate cause, conscript evaders, deserters, disparagingly called "Tories" and "Homegrown Yankees."This book is a panorama of the mountain war in Western North Carolina and Upper East Tennessee, of raids, skirmishes, and battles where rebel commander John B. Palmer defended the Western District against the likes of the notorious Yankee Colonel, George W. Kirk, and his raiders. The Macbeth Light Artillery is covered in a first book length account within the context of a comprehensive study of military operations during 1864 and 1865 in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee.