Hidden Cargo

This well-crafted historical pulse-pounder from Lloyd (Harbor of Spies) sees a Navy lieutenant pulled into a dark conspiracy in the months following the Civil War. Everett Townsend , commander of a schooner out of Key West, discovers a ship run aground by a storm, its locked hold flooded and filled with dead bodies. The sole survivor claims all were former slaves kidnapped in Louisiana for sale in Cuba, where slave labor still is in high demand. Townsend soon learns that formerly enslaved people have been disappearing all along the Gulf Coast, and he’s secretly dispatched by the American government to Cuba to investigate. Once there, he encounters obstacles in the form of Spanish officials who fear the U.S. wants to end Cuban slavery, a reawakened romance with his former lover (who is part of a Cuban independence movement), and his own grandmother, a prominent plantation owner and supporter of the illegal slave trade. The novel moves quickly and is enriched by Lloyd’s mastery of historical detail. Readers of both adventure and historical fiction will find this a treat. Agent: Gretchen Crary, February Media. (May)