Despite an absence of literary style (Caldwell is a storyteller, not a stylist), the raw emotions of this work grip the reader and the characterization, although not consummate in a literary sense, is satisfying to a general audience. Although there is a certain looseness of construction and carelessness about details (e.g., the use of the term muckraker before its entrance into the language, the Molly Maguires described as railroad workers instead of coal miners), immediacy is achieved by references to issues of the times and occasionally by the use of direct quotations from historical figures. Local color is achieved by frequent use of such terms as boyeen, colleen, spalpeen and references to the hated Sassenagh, which is the Gaelic word for "Saxon."

The suspense derives mainly from, first, whether or not Joe Armagh will make it at all; and, second, whether he will be able to counter...