But then again, Ms. Day has done her homework, and her Clara Barton is a rich, complex and fully developed character living in a rich and complex time. Seeing the Civil War through Clara's eyes is illuminating.

Clara Barton has been assigned to Hilton Head Island to tend to wounded Union Army Colonel John Elwell. She is used to being in the thick of things; Clara earned her nickname "Angel of the Battlefield" for the supplies and the aid she provides to wounded soldiers.

Clara's current assignment turns out to be anything but dull. She develops strong feelings for Colonel Elwell and she takes an interest in former slaves known as the Gullah. Clara learns their customs and wants to help when she discovers that some of their children have disappeared without a trace during the past year.

Clara doesn't know that pure evil is stalking her. A monster in human form, a man who believes his "experiments" on the living and the dead are so important that they justify whatever he has to do to get his desired results.

This man hates Clara because she once unknowingly prevented him from getting more live specimens. He has been sending Clara letters for sometime, but when he finds out that she has come to Hilton Head, he is determined to have his revenge. Clara, on the other hand, is determined to find her tormentor and expose him.

Cut to the Heart is about much more than finding a psychopath. It's about Clara Barton during her prime and the view of a feminist before there was such a thing as feminists. And it’s about the private and public events that drove this woman to accomplish so much during a time when women were not considered capable of achievement outside the home.

The history is much more satisfying than mystery in this story. At times the storyline feels like it is going in too many directions. There is the psychopath's story, there are many illusions to otherworldly, voodoo-type stuff, and then you have Clara's problems: caring for a married man and fighting the people who would try and tell her she can't do what she knows needs to be done.

The characterizations of the main characters in Cut to the Heart are absolutely wonderful. I just wish the author could have come up with more of a mystery. Of course one of the problems with using a real-life historical character is that readers know when the person died. Clara Barton lived a long and very full life that extended well beyond the Civil War and into the next century. So I couldn't work up much concern about anything too bad happening to her; I know she lives on and eventually becomes the founder of the American Red Cross.

--Judith Flavell