An orphaned teenager, a smooth-talking hustler, a girl disguised as a boy, an itinerant pedlar and a pair of camels, complete with Egyptian minder: Dee Brown's motley, mix'n'match cast of characters might have come straight out of the circus - and, indeed, that's where most of them end up. As the story opens, however, they're wandering across America just as the burgeoning civil war is beginning to polarise hearts and minds along unpredictable, and often lethal, lines. Some 40 years later, as Ben Butterfield recalls the events of 1862 from the sedate perspective of his dry goods store in a quiet backwater town, past and present gradually coalesce in this elegant, gentle, gloriously old-fashioned book. If you thought they didn't write 'em like this any more, go out and buy it at once, and treat yourself to something special.