Thin Moon and Cold Mist

This enlightening novel kicks off the publisher's ``Women of the West'' series, featuring fictional accounts of extraordinary real-life women who lived in the American West before 1880. It is May 1864, and Robin Walkingstick Heatherton, a beautiful young woman of half-Cherokee descent, has again disguised herself as a ``Negro'' soldier and infiltrated the Union Army in order to spy for her beloved Confederacy. Meanwhile, Union Army Major Thomas Corley, obsessed with Robin ever since her espionage work resulted in the death of his older brother, has offered $1000 in gold for information leading to her capture; he also has vowed to track Robin down himself, and to kill her. When her husband, a Confederate soldier, is shot by a firing squad commanded by Corley, Robin flees Virginia with their five-year-old son, Jeremy, for the West. En route, she wins a mining claim in the Colorado Territory, only to find out, upon arriving at the site, that it has already been settled by the bushy-bearded Garrison Parker, a Union Army hero. Eventually, the two fall in love, but too soon Garrison must make a fateful decision: whether to reveal Robin's possible involvement in one of the most shocking events in American history. Gear (Sand in the Wind) invests this story with historical detail and intriguing plot twists, delivered in lively prose. (July)