Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Black Rose Writing, and author Brian Kaufman for the advanced reader copy of this book. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

The Civil War has often been painted as a struggle of brother against brother. While that was true in some cases, the men who were actually conflicted about allegiances were few and far between. However, they make for the most interesting characters in stories about that war.

Decker Brown is a native of Richmond, Virginia who has been apprenticing to his Uncla Oskar in Boston for two years. They work with illuminations (or fireworks as we know them now). Decker has bigger ambitions and returns to Richmond intent on claiming his love, Paula, and starting both a business and a family.

The declaration of war between the Confederacy and the Union puts a stop to those ambitions. Having lived in the North for two years, Decker has differing opinions about many things from his Virginia brethren, including slavery and the capability of the Confederacy to win the war. He can't in good conscience fight to keep people enslaved, and at the same time, he doesn't want to be fighting his friends and family. As the war begins, he travels to Illinois to join the Union Army there.

After a typical training where there's the evil sergeant who seems to hate Decker for no good reason, he gets the attention of officers in the ordnance department who transfer him back to Washington DC to help in designing possible rockets to use against the Confederacy. Decker doesn't like being so close to fighting the people who were his friends and neighbors, but does his duty. After Gettysburg, he can see the war is all but lost for the South, and he decides to jump sides and fight for his native Virginia. Along the way, he saves General Lee's life and becomes a war hero.

Lying in a hospital bed with wounds that would kill a weaker man, Decker has time to reflect on the futility of war as well as what he will do with his life. He's lost an arm and a leg in the battle and doesn't have a clear view of his future any longer. Adding to his misery, he learns that Paula, believing him dead, married someone else.

The conflict within Decker is believable as he struggles with feelings of loyalty to his native Virginia and the people he knows there, while at the same time being practical enough to know slavery is wrong and the Confederate Army cannot beat the Union Army in the long run. However, I struggled to understand what he was thinking a good part of the time. The choices he makes and what motivates him are laid out, but it doesn't always make sense. For instance, he's deeply committed to not fighting against the people he knows in Virginia, yet when he switches sides, he never seems to consider that he could then be putting bullets into the same men he trained alongside in Illinois.

His postwar actions confuse me as well. For someone who could perceive before the war that there was no way the Confederates could win, he returns to Richmond almost in a state of innocence, thinking he can be a part of the rebuilding process and help the people still alive there. Decker argues that it's a new world and they must embrace it to move forward, and he's right. However, that doesn't matter as the stage is set for more racial conflict by the Virginia aristocracy who just don't want to let go of their way of life.

Dread Tribunal of Last Resort is a good read, but there wasn't much here that seemed new when looking at the Civil War and Reconstruction eras in American History. The idea of rockets or missiles being developed during this era is interesting but goes nowhere. The Reconstruction era seems to indicate Decker will be trying something quite daring but fails to capitalize on it. I was expecting an ending like fireworks and instead, it fizzled.

Decker Brown returns home to Richmond, Virginia, full of plans for his new life marrying his sweetheart Paula and setting up a business to make fireworks. Unfortunately, the Civil War intervenes and suddenly his world is turned upside down. Decker does not believe in slavery, and so would find it hard to fight for his beloved South - he has some serious decisions to make that will skew his life away from the plan and in directions he never would have dreamed.

This is a powerful book, beautifully written, about war, about conscience, about following one's dream. The characters jump to life, the setting is well-drawn and if the plot is occasionally a little unbelievable, drawing in real-life characters like Jules Verne, then its easy to ride along as the whole thing is told so well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Black Rose Writing for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.