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    When Johnny Came Marching Home
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    When Johnny Came Marching Home
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    When Johnny Came Marching Home
    Audiobook8 hours

    When Johnny Came Marching Home

    Written by William Heffernan

    Narrated by R.C. Bray

    4.5/5

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    Currently unavailable

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    About this audiobook

    Trapped in what appears to be an endless bloodbath - vividly presented with Heffernan's meticulous historical research - three boys gradually begin to change until their close-knit childhood ties are little more than a fractured memory. By war's end, one boy is dead, one returns a physically crippled and emotionally compromised man, and the third comes home as an unfeeling psychopath. The novel turns on the subsequent murder of the psychopath, and the offer of redemption for the wounded young man who must investigate the crime. When Johnny Came Marching Home is a story about war, and how it affects the lives of all who become a part of it, both directly and peripherally.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateOct 2, 2012
    ISBN9781624060335
    Author

    William Heffernan

    William Heffernan won the 1996 Edgar Allan Poe Award for his novel Tarnished Blue. He is the author of eleven novels, including the international best-sellers The Corsican, Ritual, Blood Rose, and Corsican Honor. His novel The Dinosaur Club was a New York Times bestseller and is in development at Warner Bros. to become a motion picture. A former reporter for The New York Daily News, he lives in Huntington, Vermont, with his wife and three sons.

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    Reviews for When Johnny Came Marching Home

    4.5/5

    5 ratings11 reviews

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    • 5/5
      William Heffernan's murder mystery set just after the end of the Civil War is a fine period novel told in first person. A truly enjoyable read. Heffernan gives us a look at the effects of war on the 3 friends who became Union soldiers and their families. Even though most readers will be able to predict the reason for the narrator's feelings toward the murdered friend, the manner in which the murderer is dealt with is surprising.
    • 5/5
      ‘When Johnny Came Marching Home’ is about three young men, one who dies during the war, one who is crippled in the war and one who is a psychopath. It takes place after the war as one of them investigates a murder. The story unfolds through a series of flashbacks revealing the young men as the boys they were before the war and the men they became during the war. The author’s ability to move seamlessly from one time period to another without losing the reader is quite remarkable. The book is nicely paced, extremely well written. It’s been more years than I care to count since I've found a novel this engrossing.
    • 4/5
      A fascinating peek into the life of a civil war soldier (although admittedly some will find it disturbing), both during the fighting and in trying to adjust back to civilian life--as the central character tries to solve the murder of a man who was once his boyhood friend. The book is obviously well-researched (with an author's note concerning bending of a few historical facts). Engaging reading. The dialect is perhaps a bit overdone--while the flavor is nice, it shouldn't be enough to trip or even slow the reader. Some will not be entirely pleased with the resolution, but it is realistic. The characters are complex, which is to say they act like real people, with conflicting emotions and loyalties. We see a group of boys enter the bloody conflict that changes them all, changes which pursue them as they try to put the war behind them. A good read.
    • 5/5
      I am loving this book! Mr. Heffernan grabs the reader right from the start by introducing three lively characters from a small town in Vermont who grew up together and end up serving together in the Union army in the Civil War. This is not just another Civil War story. Mr. Heffernan skillfully weaves together three stories--one about the boys' youth, one about their military service, and one about life (and death) after the war. It sounds like it might be confusing, but it's not. He tells the story so well, you remember the details and get caught up in the characters' lives.
    • 4/5
      I found this to be an extremely well written story about the Civil War. The author drew us into the minds of the characters as well as relaying lots of real facts about different battles of the Civil War. An interesting aspect of the story was the traveling between the three time periods, pre war, during the war, and the main character adjusting to the after war period. I'm quite sure that anyone interested in the Civil War would enjoy this book. There was really something for everyone, war scenes, human nature, mystery and even a bit of a love story.
    • 4/5
      Readers, this is a fine novel. If you enjoyed 1997's COLD MOUNTAIN by Charles Frazier you will like Heffnan's effort here. The story is engaging and I really enjoyed the way he made us move, in time and in location, simply with his sub headings within each chapter. This book is well worth the time spent reading it.
    • 5/5
      This post-Civil War murder mystery is told in first person by the only surviving member of a group of 3 boys who grew up together in Vermont in the mid-1800's and enlisted to fight together in the Civil War. The effect on the 3 best friends is an illustration of the quote, "Adversity does not build character - it reveals it." The story is revealed through short flashbacks alternating with present-time (1865) narrative...a device that William Heffernan uses very effectively. Civil War buffs will, I'm sure, enjoy the detailed battlefield descriptions. Overall, a very enjoyable book that I would be glad to recommend.
    • 5/5
      This is a epic gut wrenching story of three young men growing up in upper state Vermont in the mid 1800's, when the civil war brakes out, they all decide to offer their services too fight for their country. During the war this metamorphosis was distilled upon these young men that changed their lives forever. When they returned to their homeland, things were very different then before the war, the dreadful memories that occurred during the battles of the war were things that most people would not want too witness.
    • 3/5
      When Johnny came marching home, he was a very changed man. He'd done things during the War Between the States that he shouldn't have been proud of, but was. Only a few months after we returned, he was dead, by a murderer's hand - but whose?His friend, Jubal, is also now back from the war, minus an arm, but now the deputy constable of the town - helping his father, the constable. It's up to Jubal to find out who killed his former friend. Clues lead to several people - a clandestine lover, an old army buddy who's more ruthless and shifty that Johnny was, the woodsman whose daughter is looking for something. Does Jubal find the answer and is it what you think?A fine novel set in the 1860s which nicely goes back and forth between the present (1865) and the past (before and during the war).
    • 4/5
      This novel follows the lives of three young men from adolescence in about 1855 through major battles in the Civil War, and to the aftermath in 1865. The story is told in first person by Jubal Foster. He and his two friends Abel and Johnny are normal boys. Jubal is in love with Abel’s sister Rebecca. When war breaks out she urges them not to enlist, but they join the Army early enough in the war to take part in the battle of Bull Run.We learn early in the book that Abel was killed and Jubal lost his left arm in 1864 in The Wilderness battle, where Johnny and his friend Bobby Suggs are captured and sent to Andersonville Prison. The details of the story are revealed gradually in short flashbacks that jump about in random time and place, identified by section headings.Shortly after Jubal and Johnny return from the war, Johnny is found murdered and no one except his father, who is a preacher in the small Vermont town of Jerusalem's Landing, is very sorry. Jubal's father, who is town constable, appoints Jubal as his assistant with the task of discovering who murdered Johnny. This is an interesting variation on the usual detective novel. Jubal has no training in criminology and neither, for that matter, he does his father, but they are determined to find Johnny’s killer. When Bobby Suggs shows up a few days before the murder, he becomes an obvious suspect, although several other people have sufficient motive to have committed the crime.The author has an unusual way of revealing the story in short vignettes that jump indiscriminately through time within the chapters. It's easy enough to follow with the section headings, but I admit to a preference for stories that are told sequentially. This is particularly true when the story is told in first person. The story all takes place through the eyes of Jubal, who obviously knows all of the events that took place in earlier years, but he doesn’t reveal them or even think much about them. To me, this is an artificial author's device that builds suspense for the reader, but it doesn’t seem realistic because Jubal isn’t telling the story as he naturally would.The novel is well written and arrives at a satisfactory and interesting conclusion. I have no hesitation recommending this to anyone who's interested in the Civil War.
    • 5/5
      Very GoodAmerican civil war murder mystery yarnThe small town of Jerusalem’s Landing sends three friends off to the civil war. By war's end, one boy is dead, one returns a physically crippled and emotionally compromised man, and the third comes home as an unfeeling psychopath. The book then revolves around the investigation of the murder of one of the boys. Heffernan has crafted a very tight novel which remains gripping till the end. I don’t know much about the Civil War but am assured by the press release that it is well researched. I assume that to people who know the war in detail they would get a kick from the accounts of the various battles our protagonists take part in, the only one I recognised was Gettysburg. Shifting constantly back and forth in time telling the stories of the boys growing up, the story of their war and the story of the murder investigation. Overall – Solid and enjoyable murder mystery