When Countess Maritza LeClere

sailed into Mobile harbor at the start

of the Civil War, she possessed the

sophistication of Paris and the rene-

gade spirit of Dixie. Her cargo was a

shipload of smuggled arms, and her

baggage carried a set of wartime press

credentials-plus a loaded derringer.

A southerner by birth, Maritza re-

turned from France to observe the war

with the impartral eye of a journalist,

and little expected to become so deep-

ly embroiled in the passions and tbe

polities--and the dangers-of the strug-

gle. Yet she could not resist the ebal-

lenge of spying for the Confederacy

trader the euver of her reporting. The

twofold mission would take her both

North and South: into the social cir-

cles of Washington and the suspicious

gaze of the Union Secret Service; into

the Battle of Bull Run and the aeeusa-

tion of fraternizing with the enemy; into Yankee-occupied New Orleans

and the martial law of a corrupt and

sadistic general.

Amid the espionage there is still

time for romance. Two persistent lov-

ers-one a Confederate intelligence

officer, the other a daring blockade

runner-woo this exeeptional beauty,

hoping to lure her away from her per-

ilous commitment. But the young

countess" adventures have made her

realize that she is as much in love with

intrigue as she is with love itself.

In The Passionate Rebel Frank

Slaughter comhines the drama of his-

tory and the tenderness of romance in

a stirring novel of the American Civil

War.

Frank Slaughter is a medical doctor,

as well as a Civil War historian and

Bible seholar. He is one of the most

popular and prolific authors of our

time, and his recent works include

Devil s Gamble, Phlgue Ship, Stone-

wall Brigade, and Women in White.