The Lost Despatch

by Natalie Sumner Lincoln

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206 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1913

About the author

Natalie Sumner Lincoln (4 october 1881 - 31 august 1935) was an American writer. She was born in Washington and spent her whole career in this town. She was editor of the D.A.R. Magazine (Daughters of American R) from to .

She wrote 10 crime mystery novels with Inspector Mitchell from the Washington Police Department (1916-1927), and 2 novels with Detective Ferguson in the same town (1920-1921).

In 1922, The Washington Times mentioned her as The Conan Doyle of Washington.

Reviews

[Perry Whitford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entering into the last year of the American Civil War, a clever Confederate spy is at work in Washington, stealing secret despatches and ferrying them south.

Though no one will credit it, the spy is a woman, the beautiful and intrepid Nancy Newton, a friend to Lincoln himself.

Nancy is bound to her dishonest task by a promise made to her dying father, who had raised her as though she were a son. Now three years into her service, the dogged though disbelieved Captain Lloyd is on to her.

Captain Lloyd's childhood friend Major Goddard, on the other hand, has fallen for Nancy, finding it incredulous that she could be working for the enemy.

Half way through, The Lost Despatch has you wondering exactly where it's going, with a traitorous heroine and a patriotic soldier willing to lie for her out of affection.

And true enough it didn't exactly go where I thought it would, to the extent that I was pleasantly surprised. The writing is hardly great, some melodrama does creep in, yet the unexpected developments turned a potentially creaky love story into a fairly decent mystery.

Lincoln's various cameo appearances also helped to add some weight and, to top things off, some pathos.