By Timothy Egan

We’re familiar with Timothy Egan from reading his riveting, National Book Award-winning book, The Worst Hard Time. In this book, too, Egan’s history is solid, his storytelling captivating.

Few but Civil War buffs have heard of Thomas Francis Meagher (1823-1867), but his life was adventurous in the extreme. Though he was condemned to death for his leading a failed uprising against British rule, he was instead exiled to a Tasmanian prison colony. He escaped to America, living in New York where he became active in Irish-American politics. Upon the outbreak of Civil War, he was appointed general of the Union army’s Irish Brigade and became a heroic war leader. Upon leaving the army he became lieutenant governor of the Montana Territory, working energetically to create the rule of law in a new Ireland in the wild west of Montana—a quixotic adventure that ended in the great mystery of his disappearance…which Egan attempts to resolve.