If you are a Slaughter fan, you will probably like In A Dark Garden. If you are not familiar with his works, this might be an appropriate one with which to start.
High Point: An interesting and diverse plot set during the American Civil War.
Low Point: The romantic bits are awkward, overly dramatic, and frankly, a little embarrassing.
Author: Frank Slaughter
Publication Date: 1946
Genre: Fiction
Frank G. Slaughter’s In A Dark Garden presents an interesting tale of a Southern blue-blooded physician who serves the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. It covers the period from 1862 through the end of the war in 1865, taking the lead character from Scotland through the Caribbean to the Deep South.
The plot offers few surprises, but is engaging enough to keep you reading further. The battle scenes are descriptive, and the medical procedures are credible (at least to a layman). The romantic bits are a bit awkward and overly dramatic—almost embarrassing—but were probably rather forward when the book was published in 1946.
Slaughter was a talented and prolific author with his novels published from 1941 to 1987. In A Dark Garden exhibits the diversity required by such a long span. He’s in the war in the south in the mid-19th century here, but the next novel you read may be in a New England psychiatric hospital in the 1950s, or maybe in Texas in the 1970s working on the space race.
If you are a Slaughter fan, you will probably like In A Dark Garden. If you are not familiar with his works, this might be an appropriate one with which to start.
Sources For This Book
Free eBook (Project Gutenberg): Not available
Free Audiobook (LibriVox): Not available
Available to Purchase: AbeBooks, Biblio, Thriftbooks
