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The third installment in Byrd's series of political/historical novels (Jefferson; Jackson) is informative and entertaining historical fiction. Although it's touted as similar to Gore Vidal's sensational American chronicle series, Byrd's literary mentor is more like Henry James, as the book features dense prose, a mannerly plot and psychologically real characterizations. A fictional character, journalist and author Nicholas Trist, is the center of this loosely constructed churn through the politics and society of the 1880s. Trist is a one-armed and embittered veteran of Cold Harbor who has spent his years since the Civil War in self-imposed exile. Sent home to America by a French magazine to cover Ulysses S. Grant's bid for an unprecedented third term in 1879, Trist is initially bulldozed by Sen. Don Cameron, Grant's campaign manager, who vows to give the reporter access to Grant only if he'll write laudatory accounts. Elizabeth, Cameron's young and lovely wife, instantly attracts Trist's interest, and the first half of the novel is paced by their parries as the pair seek the courage to consummate their passion. A storm of Washington politics swirls in the background, and the cast of characters is fleshed out by credible portraits of Samuel Clemens, Sylvanus Cadwaller, William T. Sherman, Clover Adams and, of course, Grant himself. In the second half of the book, the action jumps ahead to the next election year and traces Grant's decline into bankruptcy and fatal disease as he frantically tries to complete his memoirs in order to save his family from penury. Trist and Elizabeth get together, but here Byrd makes a tactical mistake (the same one Vidal commits in Empire), by trying to shift the focus to Henry Adams--who, as a character, remains a caricature of a conceited and often cruel cynic. Byrd's research and literary knowledge are impressive, but while his re-creation of period detail, including product placement (Ivory Soap, E.C. Booze whiskey and Heinz Pickles), is excellent, there are a few anachronisms. Even so, this is a fascinating read for any serious student of period when modern politics and society were being mapped out of the smoky shadows of a devastating war. Agent, Virginia Barber. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Ulysses S. Grant, an undistinguished president who owed his office to a nation grateful for the long-awaited victory in the Civil War, is a historical novelist's dream subject. Living during a tumultuous time and marked by both honor and humiliation, he projected an ambiguous persona. Ehrlich takes this paradoxical man for a wild ride through history. Casting Grant as the evil twin of the real Ulysses S. Grant, an upright neighbor whose identity he stole, Ehrlich hits all the factual highlights, and his inventions have a satirical, gut-busting effect. Like his earlier Big Government (LJ 9/15/98), the new novel humorously dissects the nature of political power and its odd coincidences. In contrast, Byrd's book, though slower to excite the reader, is a serious exploration of the life and times of Grant. Its strong suit is the description of key battles and postwar events through the eyes of a one-armed veteran of the war. For Byrd, the period is a vast canvas on which he limns not only the central figure of Grant but also the lives affected by his habitual fecklessness, wartime hardness, and peacetime obtuseness. Of the two books, Ehrlich's book is a winner for larger fiction collections, while military fiction collections will be enhanced by the Byrd title. [Grant is also portrayed in Richard Parry's That Fateful Lightning: A Novel of Ulysses S. Grant (LJ 5/1/00). --Ed.]--Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Following up his biographical novels about Thomas Jefferson and, most recently, Andrew Jackson (1997), Byrd turns his attention to the eighteenth president, Ulysses S. Grant. Byrd focuses on the last years of Grant's life, opening his novel in 1880, when the Republican Party is about to choose a presidential candidate, and ending with Grant's death from throat cancer five years later. Although most of the people in the novel are real, the one who connects the various subplots and characters is invented. As he covers Grant's potential candidacy and approaching death for the Washington Post, Nicholas Trist, a veteran of the Civil War who lost an arm at the battle of Cold Harbor (in which Grant was the commanding general), interacts with the major political and literary lights of the time. Washington in the 1880s resembles Washington of the 1990s: love affairs, leaks to the newspapers, jockeying for advantages, and even a best-selling anonymous novel purporting to give the inside scoop on Washington politicos. Historical fiction doesn't get any better than this. (Reviewed July 2000)0553096338Nancy Pearl From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.