Augustus Cain is a man with his back against the wall. A war-scarred wanderer, he faces a past he wants to forget, a present without prospect or fortune, and an uncertain future marred by the loss of his most prized possession - his horse - which he has carelessly gambled away. But he is not without skill - he has an uncanny, if unwelcome, ability to track the most elusive runaway slaves. And to repay a debt and keep his horse, he must head north from Virginia and retrieve a runaway named Rosetta. When he eventually runs Rosetta to ground in Boston, Cain discovers she carries a secret - and the size of the bounty on her head begins to make more sense. Fleeing the northern states pursued by a posse of Unionists, Cain finds himself increasingly drawn to Rosetta and starts to wonder if his five hundred dollar fee - if any fee - could ever be enough to return her to her master...Set against the backdrop of a nation preparing to tear itself apart, "Soul Catcher" is the story of an unforgettable journey, one of hardship and redemption, an odyssey that will change the travellers forever.
I love a good Civil-War-era/1800s-in-the-U.S. historical fiction novel. And this *was* a good one. Cain is a man who’s more than a little bit lost. He’s basically sleep-walking through life, drunk on either whiskey, laudanum, or both, and gambling for money to live. Except he’s not always a great gambler, and now he’s gotten himself into a debt he can’t run away from. When the man he owes money to wants him to use his tracking skills to bring home his runaway slave, Rosetta, Cain doesn’t really have a choice. Soul Catcher is the story of that journey.
Cain is forced to travel with a group of men that you would expect to be slave-catchers… generally either apathetic or downright cruel and sadistic. There is a lot of both the expected and unexpected here, and though I mostly guessed the ending and the decision Cain would make about his life, I never would have guessed the final twist. Some may question how realistic Cain and Rosetta are in their actions and interactions, but I can believe it all the same.
