No Certain Rest

Jim Lehrer was the featured author this year at our library's Bookmania! event.  It wasn't until I heard him speak that I realized that he was a novelist as well as a journalist and politcal commentator.  During the interview, the moderator mentioned No Certain Rest (#170).  In this novel, National Park Service archeologist Don Spaniel is called in to identify a Civil War era body found on private land bordering the Antietam battlefield.  He enlists the help of a forensics expert and friend at the Smithsonian to work with the bones.  In the process the pair uncover not just the identity of the body, but a mystery that goes back to the day of that epic battle: September 17, 1862.

My brother amassed a considerable American military library, and after his death, we located a specialist book dealer to handle its sale.  He happened to be located very near the Antietam battleground, so we took the opportunity to spend a day walking around the site.  Today, it's hard to imagine the horror of what happened there on the bloodiest day in American history when 23,000 men were killed or wounded.  Jim Lehrer, in discussing this book, stated that when he began to write this book, he had not much interest in the Civil War.  He and his wife live not too far from Antietam, so they often go there to walk or to bike, but he never heard the voices from the battlefield that many do.  But when a body was found on the grounds, as happens from time to time, he became intrigued by the process of trying to identify the body, and the idea for this book was born.

Don Spaniel, the protagonist, on the other hand lives and breathes the Civil War.  To winkle out the truth about an object or a person is the energy that fuels him.  He communicates happily with the other scientists and historians who can move his search along, but reenactors who become the persons they study are a bit of a puzzle for him until he carries out a final duty for a friend.  Solving the mystery of the dead Civil War soldier doesn't make everyone happy, however, and leads to a shocking and unexpected ending. 

If you are a fan of Kathy Reichs and those types of forensic novels, with an interest in American history, No Certain Rest would be a good choice for you.