Under Investigation

U.S. Grant Short Mysteries

By: Jeffrey Marks

Narrated by: Nick Mortise

These are short mysteries featuring US Grant during the Civil War. These previously published stories have appeared in a variety of book-length anthologies, and both on-line and print magazines. Each of the stories takes place prior to the first US Grant mystery novel, The Ambush of My Name.

©2011 Jeffrey Marks (P)2014 Jeffrey Marks

So-so set of short mysteries featuring U.S. Grant

This is a collection of short stories with U.S. Grant investigating murders. They're in no particular order, the first taking place after the Civil War, and the rest at various points during the war. In one, it's not Grant, but his horse, investigating the murder.

Honestly, I liked that one the best.

The characterization is mostly good. There's good attention to the mores and social assumptions of the time. The plots, sadly, are just a little too pat, and seem like a waste of a great character like Grant, and of course his horse.

Not bad, but, really, nothing special.

I bought this audiobook.

Different in a good way

mystery, short-stories, historical-figures, historical-fiction, us-civil-war, audiobook, whispersync -------
The only negative I found was that the stories skipped around in time rather than in a progression. I have always felt that short stories are the most difficult to write because there is so little time to develop the secondary characters, and often the back story as well. That being said, I think that the stories themselves showed logical thinking and substantial imagination. I certainly enjoyed them.
Nick Mortise did nice work as narrator.
Found on sale as Whispersync courtesy of Book Gorilla.