“Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy” by Karen Abbott – A Game of Queens

The Civil War which led to the creation of the United States of America is a subject that is thoroughly covered in school (or at the very least, in most education systems), but even so many of its notable topics are left out, some because there is simply no time for them, and others because they aren't exactly well-known.

The role which four women – Belle Boyd, Emma Edmonds, Rose O'Neale Greenhow and Elizabeth Van Lew – played in the conflict falls into the latter category.

Naturally, the exclusion of women from military affairs up until recently hasn't given them a whole lot of opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities, but these ones have found a way to become very important cogs in the war machine, and in Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, Karen Abbott details to us the grandiose adventures they lived through.

Though the book is labeled as being a historical non-fiction, it is written in a casual and entertaining way while still never putting anything above facts in terms of importance. In other words, what Abbott provides us with here is a novelized account of what she managed to unveil about these four women.

Now, of course, much of her research comes from information that is already easy to access (if you know that you are looking for it), but she still went ahead and ran the extra miles to really milk as much knowledge as possible from every available resource.

Indeed, Abbott also based the stories in her book on the various interviews conducted with descendants of those women as well as her own, personal research that took her to places the average person with a modest interest in history wouldn't venture (figuratively-speaking).

So what is it that these women did and for what kind of story does this make for? As you may have guessed from the nature of the title itself, being a play on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John LeCarre, those four women ended up becoming spies, apart from one who actually enrolled in the army while disguised as a man.

In other words, this draws you into a story that covers the various battlefields of warfare, the covert as well as the open ones. Abbott takes you through the bloody plains where poor soldiers were sent to their slaughter through to the homes of rich and powerful aristocrats who can bring about changes with the mere strength of their words.

There are also plenty of other historical characters making appearances, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Stonewall Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon III, just to mention a few.

Don't worry though, for despite the fact that the novel is rather heavily loaded with historical facts, events and characters, it never drifts off into the territory of a history book.

The education isn't shoved down your throat, and can be instead seen as an additional bonus to a rather thrilling set of stories which will entertain, and possibly provoke you into some deeper thoughts.

Regardless of whether you are interested in reading this book for the historical information that it provides you with on an under-explored topic or want a spy thriller that is entertaining and unconventional (not to mention, real), then you are most certainly going to find things to love in this book.

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Karen Abbott Personal site Karen Abbott is an American author who has mainly specialized her career to historical non-fiction literature, and though so far she hasn't published many books, with Sin in the Second City and American Rose being her first two efforts, though she is making her way up in the world as her novels have garnered a fair amount of attention already.