Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War by Tony Horwitz

This book is part biography of John Brown, part explanation of his raid at Harper's Ferry--from its planning to its execution to its aftermath. There's less personal in this book compared to Confederates in the Attic and A Voyage Long and Strange--Horwitz does a great (and entertaining) job of teasing out the facts, the movement of various players, and history's ironies, but you don't see him doing his research or his personal reactions to the material (as you do in the other books). The book is not particularly scholarly--but it's a great lay introduction to one of the most divisive moments in US history.