Flanagan and the Crown of Mexico

Winner of the Global eBook Awards Gold Medal for best Historical Literature Fiction (Modern 1500-1940)
Irish immigrant Tyler Flanagan is attending the Naval Academy during the Civil War when he is suddenly pulled out by Secretary of State Seward himself, and sent as a diplomat/spy to Mexico where the French have invaded, driven President Juarez from Mexico City, and installed an Austrian nobleman named Maximilian as Emperor. Flanagan was selected because he has an unlikely connection to Juarez he never knew about.
Flanagan’s mission is to encourage Juarez and do what he can to undermine Maximilian, including intercepting the French army’s secret battle plans. He meets Juarez; idealistic, determined, but outnumbered and outgunned by the French; and Emperor Maximilian; inept, indecisive, but backed by his formidable wife and the might of France.
As he attempts to complete his mission and keep his head down at the same time, the reluctant Flanagan almost faces a firing squad, is kidnapped and thrown into a dungeon, threatened by a French general, dragged into bloody battles, and is almost framed as an assassin. In spite of the danger, and his better judgment, Flanagan somehow finds the time to romance a dangerous Mexican senorita, and even attempts to seduce the Empress Carlota.
Meanwhile, it sometimes seems as if everyone he meets is looking to put an end to Flanagan’s mission permanently. It’s all in a day’s work for our hero with his gifts for blarney, misadventure, and self-preservation. But Irish luck and blarney will only get you so far; let’s hope this time it’s far enough to enable Flanagan to get back in one piece.