Brother Against Brother; Or, The Tompkins Mystery: A Story of the Great American Rebellion.

Virginia, 1859. George W. Tompkins rides a stagecoach through mist-shrouded hills, his composed exterior belying a soul in torment. His brother's family has been murdered, the crime somehow entangled with the slaves on their plantation, and Tompkins carries a burden heavier than grief: the guilt of a man who benefits from an institution he cannot reconcile with his conscience. As the nation hurtles toward its reckoning, Tompkins confronts the same ancient question that haunts every complicit heart: how long can one look away from atrocity? Musick weaves a murder mystery through the fabric of pre-war America, using one family's tragedy to illuminate a nation preparing to devour itself. The Tompkins mystery is not merely who killed Brother's family, but whether Tompkins, and the South he represents, can survive the moral reckoning approaching like a storm across the Virginia hills.