James Lee Burke: White Doves at Morning (UK 2010)

From the Publisher:
An epic novel of the American Civil War from the bestselling author of THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN.
Set mainly in Louisiana during the years 1861-1868, this passionate novel of men, women and war tells the story of the author's ancestor, Confederate soldier Willie Burke, during the American Civil War. A classic Burke hero, Willie is soon in conflict with his superiors.

The characters who people these pages, many of them based on real historical figures, are as memorable as any Burke has created. Mulatto, Flower Jamison, victim of terrible abuse who is determined to better herself; Abigail Dowling, whose Unionist sympathies put her in constant danger; Colonel Ira Jamison, rotten to his core yet who would rise from a cesspit smelling of roses...

James Lee Burke: White Doves at Morning. A Novel of the Civil War. Orion eBook, ISBN: 9781409132820 (November, 2010), 520 KB (ca. 468 p.), £4.99.

James Lee Burke: White Doves at Morning (USA 2004)

From the Publisher:
1861. Two young Southerners, friends despite their differing political views and backgrounds, enlist in the 18th Louisiana regiment of the Confederate Army: Robert Perry, wealthy and privileged, and irreverent Willie Burke, the son of Irish immigrants, face the trials of battle and find redemption in the love of a passionate and committed abolitionist, Abigail Downing, and in the courageous struggle of Flower Jamison, a beautiful slave. Filled with a cast of unforgettable characters, and penetrating a landscape of shattering Civil War bloodshed as few novels have, this epic from an American literary giant endows readers with the gift of experiencing the past through new eyes, while its timeless prose style -- at once luminous and brutal -- ensures the legacy of this bloodiest of conflicts will never be lost.

James Lee Burke: White Doves at Morning. Pocket Star Books, ISBN: 0743466624 (May, 2004), 434 p., $7.99.

James Lee Burke: White Doves at Morning (UK 2003)

From the Publisher:
Set mainly in Louisiana during the years 1861-1868, this passionate novel of men, women and war tells the story of the author's ancestor, Confederate soldier Willie Burke, during the American Civil War. A classic Burke hero, Willie is soon in conflict with his superiors.

The characters who people these pages, many of them based on real historical figures, are as memorable as any Burke has created. Mulatto, Flower Jamison, victim of terrible abuse who is determined to better herself; Abigail Dowling, whose Unionist sympathies put her in constant danger; Colonel Ira Jamison, rotten to his core yet who would rise from a cesspit smelling of roses...

James Lee Burke: White Doves at Morning. Orion Books, ISBN: 0752842757 (November, 2003), 344 p., £6.99.

James Lee Burke: White Doves at Morning (UK 2003)

From the Publisher:
Set mainly in Louisiana during the years 1861-1868, this passionate novel of men, women and war tells the story of the author's ancestor, Confederate soldier Willie Burke. A classic Burke hero, innately moral to the point of lunacy, Willie is soon in conflict with his superiors. As his best friend Jim Stubblefield observes: 'the juncture of Willie Burke and the Confederate Army is akin to the meeting of a wrecking ball and a crystal shop.' The characters who people these pages, many of them based on real historical figures, are as memorable as any Burke has created. Mulatto Flower Jamison, victim of terrible abuse that never touches her soul, determined to better herself; Quaker abolitionist Abigail Dowling, whose Unionist sympathies put her in constant danger; Colonel Ira Jamison, rotten to his core yet who would rise from a cesspit smelling of roses; these and many others stay powerfully in the mind in this epic tale. Like all the best war novels, WHITE DOVES AT MORNING concentrates not on battles but on the edges of grand events, the detritus that wars create, the human cost, and, in this case, the terrible aftermath.

James Lee Burke: White Doves at Morning. A Novel of the American Civil War. Orion Books, ISBN: 0752856502 (March, 2003), 280 p., £12.99.

James Lee Burke: White Doves at Morning (USA 2002)

From the Publisher:
For years, critics have acclaimed the power of James Lee Burke's writing, the luminosity of his prose, the psychological complexity of his characters, the richness of his landscapes. Over the course of twenty novels and one collection of short stories, he has developed a loyal and dedicated following among both critics and general readers. His thrillers, featuring either Louisiana cop Dave Robicheaux or Billy Bob Holland, a hardened Texas-based lawyer, have consistently appeared on national bestseller lists, making Burke one of America's most celebrated authors of crime fiction. Now, in a startling and brilliantly successful departure, Burke has written a historical novel -- an epic story of love, hate, and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

At the center of the novel are James Lee Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, who comes from a slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willie Burke, born of Irish immigrants, a poor boy who is as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite their personal and political conflicts with the issues of the time, both men join the Confederate Army, choosing to face ordeal by fire, yet determined not to back down in their commitment to their moral beliefs, to their friends, and to the abolitionist woman with whom both have become infatuated.

One of the most compelling characters in the story, and the catalyst for much of its drama, is Flower Jamison, a beautiful young black slave befriended, at great risk to himself, by Willie and owned by -- and fathered by, although he will not admit it -- Ira Jamison. Owner of Angola Plantation, Ira Jamison is a true son of the Old South and also a ruthless businessman, who, after the war, returns to the plantation and re-energizes it by transforming it into a penal colony, which houses prisoners he rents out as laborers to replace the slaves who have been emancipated.

Against all local law and customs, Flower learns from Willie to read and write, and receives the help and protection of Abigail Dowling, a Massachusetts abolitionist who had come south several years prior to help fight yellow fever and never left, and who has attracted the eye of both Willie and Robert Perry. These love affairs are not only fraught with danger, but compromised by the great and grim events of the Civil War and its aftermath.

As in all of Burke's writings, White Doves at Morning is full of wonderful, colorful, unforgettable villains. Some, like Clay Hatcher, are pure "white trash" (considered the lowest of the low, they were despised by the white ruling class and feared by former slaves). From their ranks came the most notorious of the vigilante groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, the White League and the Knights of the White Camellia. Most villainous of all, though, are the petty and mean-minded Todd McCain, owner of New Iberia's hardware store, and the diabolically evil Rufus Atkins, former overseer of Angola Plantation and the man Jamison has placed in charge of his convict labor crews.

Rounding out this unforgettable cast of characters are Carrie LaRose, madam of New Iberia's house of ill repute, and her ship's-captain brother Jean-Jacques LaRose, Cajuns who assist Flower and Abigail in their struggle to help the blacks of the town.

James Lee Burke: White Doves at Morning. A Novel. Simon & Schuster, ISBN: 0743244710 (November, 2002), 305 p., $25.00.