Set in 1865 Mississippi, Something in Madness illuminates Reconstruction, one of the darkest periods in American history and the roots of America’s ongoing racial divide. The novel incorporates well-researched details of real events and attitudes from the era to ground both the characters and the story in reality. And its varied points of view — black, white, mixed-race, Native American, male and female — will leave readers questioning their own place in society. Appomattox ended the war with a penstroke…but the struggle for freedom had only begun. After the Civil War, abolitionist Durksen Hurst and three black friends return home to a devastated Mississippi, the sole survivors of a Union colored cavalry regiment. But instead of peace, they find unregenerate Confederates who reject emancipation still in charge. Undeterred, Durk opens a law practice to help disenfranchised freedmen — only to be threatened by powerful planters and nightriders. A black school is burned; a petition march to Jackson is terrorized. And when one of his friends goes missing, Durk is horrified to discover Black Codes being used to force freedmen into brutal servitude. Clever Durk schemes to liberate them, but must contend with armed ruffians — and a rigged court system. Will fire and bullets prevail?