In exchange for his freedom, a Confederate prisoner chooses to hitch on with a Federal posse, tracking his former commander into Mexico, where he hopes to find answers to the mysterious death of his brother.

This logline raises more questions than interest in my mind.

What’s the protagonist’s motivation: to win his freedom or to solve the riddle of his brother’s death? And how is the Union posse going to hold him prisoner if the Civil War is over? Or is it?

If the war is still going, why would the Union divert badly needed man power resources from the war effort to chase one man who has fled to Mexico?

What makes the commander a “McGuffin” (ala Alfred Hitchcock) — someone they absolutely MUST find? Or else–what? What’s at risk of being lost if they don’t find this commander?

And wouldn’t it be more interesting if the stakes were higher? It’s not just a matter of winning his freedom, but saving his very life– or the life of a stake character, some one near and dear to him (a love interest?)

More notes: What’s the appeal of the Confederate prisoner to the Federal Posse? That is, what special knowledge or skill he brings to the hunt for the commander that the Feds can’t find among their own?

Also: a Federal posse has no legal authority to invade Mexico to capture the commander. So the posse would have to violate Mexican sovereignty — a dramatic complication, to be sure. In fact, going into Mexico illegally is a potentially more interesting dramatic hook to me than the fact that an ex-Confederate agrees to assist a Federal posse.