Introducing The Ghost Payroll — Ashes of the Union Series Begins

I am excited to share with you the BIG NEWS: The Ghost Payroll will be published by Barnes & Noble Publishing this winter!

THE GHOST PAYROLL is the first novel in my new historical mystery-thriller series, ASHES OF THE UNION that will span three books, a Netflix series, and a summer blockbuster mocvie! Ok, I made up the parts about Netflix and movie... but HEY PRODUCERS -- I AM LISTENING!

Check back here soon, and the official cover will be revealed! But for now, here is a little bit about the book.

America Survived the War. The Battle for What Came Next Had Already Begun.

The Civil War was over. At least, that was what everyone wanted to believe. The Union had survived, but the country emerging from the war was wounded, divided, and changing at an extraordinary pace. Railroads were pushing farther west. Fortunes were being created almost overnight. The Army was fighting new battles along the frontier. Powerful men were discovering that money, transportation, information, and political influence could accomplish things armies sometimes could not.

It is against that backdrop that the Ashes of the Union series begins, and The Ghost Payroll is set.

In 1870, Captain Elias Mercer, a decorated Union veteran, is given what should be a relatively straightforward assignment: find a missing military payroll before isolated frontier garrisons go unpaid and discipline begins to collapse.

But Mercer quickly discovers that the payroll may not have been stolen at all.

It may have been redirected.

And someone has gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure nobody discovers where it went.

Dead witnesses.

Falsified military records.

Secret railroad lines.

Missing federal money.

Unauthorized soldiers operating beyond normal Army command.

And everywhere Mercer looks, another piece of the country’s rapid westward expansion seems connected to the mystery.

The deeper he investigates, the more dangerous the question becomes.

What if the violence consuming the frontier isn’t simply happening?

What if someone is helping create it?

Meet Captain Elias Mercer

At the center of The Ghost Payroll is Elias Mercer, a man who survived the Civil War believing deeply in duty, discipline, and the Union he fought to preserve.

Mercer is not a gunslinger looking for trouble. He is an investigator. He is a soldier who notices what other people overlook. He is a man who understands that a ledger entry can sometimes be more dangerous than a bullet and that the most important clue at a crime scene may be the thing someone deliberately removed.

But Mercer’s greatest strength is also his greatest vulnerability.

He believes institutions matter.

He believes the uniform means something.

He believes the country he fought for is worth defending.

And The Ghost Payroll forces him to confront a much harder question: What happens when defending your country requires you to defy the people who claim to represent it?

The Order of the Sabre

Mercer’s search for the missing payroll eventually reveals something far larger than stolen gold. Operating behind military commands, railroad companies, financial institutions, and political influence is a clandestine organization known as the Order of the Sabre.

Its members believe history should not be left to chance.

Wars can be encouraged.

Markets can be manipulated.

Enemies can be created.

Governments can be pressured.

And if a few lives—or a few thousand—must be sacrificed to produce the right future, there are men willing to make that calculation. For Mercer, recovering the payroll becomes secondary to discovering just how far the Order’s influence reaches. Because once he begins pulling at the thread, he realizes the conspiracy may extend far beyond the frontier.

A Historical Mystery With a Thriller's Heart

I wanted The Ghost Payroll to feel grounded in its period without becoming a history lesson. This is a world of steam locomotives and telegraph wires, cavalry posts and frontier towns, Pinkerton investigators and railroad magnates, Army bureaucracy and enormous fortunes being made as the country expands westward.

But underneath that historical setting is a mystery.

Where did the payroll go?

Who took it?

Why?

And how many people are willing to kill to keep Mercer from discovering the answer?

As the investigation expands, the story becomes part mystery, part historical adventure, and part conspiracy thriller.

I also wanted Mercer and his team to be new and engaging, yet familiar at the same time. I had long wanted to write a proper science fiction story and turn it into an epic universe like my favorite: Star Trek. As I considered the story I wanted to write last fall, one prevailing thought hit me: I have nothing new to say in the science fiction realm. I really did not. So instead, I took my inspiration from Gene Roddenberry himself. Gene had said that Star Trek was, essentially, a wagon train to the stars. Well, I decided to write a science fiction-style story in history.... taking the stars and bringing them to the wagon train!

As you read the book (when you buy it :)), look for the parallels to Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty. They are there - I promise! But I will BLOG more about the individual characters as we lead up to the ultimate release!

But back to The Ghost Payroll. When I wrote the first chapter, my intention was that this was a book - its own device - and this book tells a complete story -- but as I thought about the outlining, I realized it had greater potential. That potential is realized in:

The Ashes of the Union Series

The Ghost Payroll is Book One of the Ashes of the Union series.

The idea behind the series is simple: The Civil War ended on the battlefield.

But the struggle over what kind of nation would rise from its ashes did not.

Elias Mercer will find himself investigating mysteries and conspiracies born from that unsettled America—cases where money, politics, industry, military power, ambition, and violence intersect.

And behind some of them may be an organization that has been thinking several moves ahead of everyone else.

Including Mercer.

A Brief Taste of The Ghost Payroll

Here’s a small glimpse of the kind of mystery awaiting him:

The payroll was missing. That was the fact everyone wanted Mercer to accept it. Men had been killed. Gold had disappeared. The frontier offered a hundred places where both could vanish forever. It would have been easier if the evidence agreed with this premis. But it did not. Mercer studied what had been left behind and then what hadn’t. Too little blood. Too few tracks. Records that should have existed and somehow did not. Somebody wanted the Army searching for stolen gold. Mercer was beginning to wonder whether it had ever been stolen at all.

And that question is where the real story begins.

The Cover Reveal Is Coming

I’m incredibly excited to start sharing The Ghost Payroll with readers.

The official cover reveal is coming soon, along with more information about Elias Mercer, the Order of the Sabre, the historical world behind the novel, and publication details as we get closer to release.

If you enjoy historical mysteries, conspiracy thrillers, secret societies, railroad intrigue, frontier adventure, and stories where uncovering the truth creates more danger than leaving it buried, I think you’re going to enjoy where Ashes of the Union is headed.

This winter, the investigation begins.

THE GHOST PAYROLL Ashes of the Union — Book One Bruce A. Sarte

Coming Winter 2026.