BOOKMONGER
North Coast author
chronicles wartime spy
How about some 19th cen-
tury intrigue to help you get
through some of the rainy days in
the forecast? North Coast author
Deb Vanasse, writing under the
pen name Vanessa Lind, explores
a fascinating facet of the Civil
War era in “The Courier’s Wife,”
a new historical novel based on
the true exploits of a female Civil
War spy.
This week’s book
‘The Courier’s Wife’
by Vanessa Lind
Vanessa Lind Books –
280 pp – $18.99
In the spring of 1862, brash
and young Hattie Logan and her
more refined friend, Anne, leave
finishing school behind and head
to Washington, D.C. Their broth-
ers have already left to fight in
the war and they, too, want to
contribute in some way to the
Union effort.
In doing this, Hattie is spit-
ing her parents who, despite liv-
ing in Indiana, have Confederate
sympathies. Anne’s father, how-
ever, has good connections on the
Union side and secures employ-
ment for them in the female divi-
sion of the Pinkerton Detective
Agency. Pinkerton has infiltrated
secessionist groups to feed intelli-
gence to Gen. George B. McClel-
lan’s Army of the Potomac.
But if these idealistic women
entertained thoughts of becom-
ing spies themselves, those are
quickly dashed. Their workplace
in the war department is a stor-
age closet converted into a mail-
room, and instead of cloak and
dagger work, their tools of trade
are teakettles and irons.
The job of the so-called
Pinkerton girls is to steam open
mail brought in by couriers to
review it for coded messages or
mentions of crucial military intel-
ligence. Those letters are rare,
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and when they are discovered,
they immediately get passed
along to men in a different office
who do the deciphering. With all
of the other letters, the girls reseal
them in their envelopes with a hot
iron and send them on their way.
Hattie chafes at performing work
that is, as she describes, “dull as
dirt.”
The occasional exception is
whenever one of the Pinkerton
couriers comes around to drop off
a new batch of mail. Handsome,
British-born Thom Welton is one
of those. He performs risky work
as a secession sympathizer, regu-
larly working behind enemy lines
to cultivate sources and report
back on Confederate activities.
But when suspicions begin to
arise in the South about Welton’s
credibility, the Pinkerton agency
determines that it needs to make
his story more convincing by pro-
viding him with a sister, and later
with a wife. They draw from the
mailroom girls to fill these roles.
When Hattie lands the cov-
eted role of Welton’s spouse, she
soon finds herself behind enemy
lines, navigating more complica-
tions and compromises than she
ever could have imagined, and
very possibly more than she can
handle.
The author might have
invested more care in developing
the tricky tension between Hat-
tie’s and Thom’s working and
personal relationships. Overall,
however, this is an involving tale
about Civil War intrigue, embroi-
dered with rich historical detail.
And if the ending of “The Cou-
rier’s Wife” seems rather incon-
clusive, readers can take comfort
in knowing that this is only the
first volume in a projected series,
titled “Secrets of the Blue and
Gray.”
The Bookmonger is Barbara
Lloyd McMichael, who writes
this weekly column focusing on
books, authors and publishers of
the Pacific Northwest. Contact
her at barbaralmcm@gmail.com.