Charles Lane (1) (1961–)

The story of Hiram C. Whitley who was called upon to penetrate the Ku Klux Klan and halt counterfeiting. His unconventional methods, running on both sides of the line of legality, were effective, but may have been one of the reasons Grant's time in office was considered to be riddled with corruption. Still, many of Whitley's methods are in use today, interrogations of underlings to flip higher ups, undercover operatives, informants, were started as part of his "succeed by any means necessary" credo. The history is fascinating.
The narration was very uneven. While the narrative was not poorly read, anytime a phrase or word was a quotation, the reader went into this scratchy falsetto that was very distressing. And it was the same for any character. It distracted me certainly.… (mehr)

On Easter Sunday, 1873, white Democrats massacred roughly eighty blacks at a county courthouse in Louisiana. This is a detailed story of the massacre and its aftermath, which involved white resistance to Reconstruction and slowly fading white Republican commitment thereto, despite the active efforts of some white Republicans, as well as the continued activism of black Republicans—in some cases, costing them their lives, as whites were willing to kill black witnesses who were willing to testify to their crimes. As white violence in the South escalated, President Grant proved unwilling to ramp up military commitments, and the courts struck down the key laws that Republicans had meant to guarantee black rights, destroying the attempt to prosecute the massacres’ major perpetrators. Careful, depressing read.… (mehr)