THE LINCOLN DECEPTION

THE LINCOLN DECEPTION                     DAVID O. STEWART
Posted: Sept. 25, 2013

 A deathbed confession and a long hidden conspiracy are at the heart of a riveting historical mystery centered on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

In March 1900, as former Congressman John Bingham of Ohio lies dying, he begins to tell a strange tale to his physician, Dr. Jamie Fraser. Bingham famously prosecuted eight members of John Wilkes Booth's plot to kill Lincoln. But during the 1865 trial, conspirator Mary Surratt divulged a secret so explosive it could shatter the republic.

Though Bingham takes the secret to his grave, Fraser cannot let go of the mystery. Bored with smalltown medical practice, he begins to investigate, securing an unlikely ally in Speed Cook, a black, college-educated professional ballplayer and would-be newspaper publisher. Cook is fascinated by Fraser's inquiry and, like Fraser, thinks the accepted version of Lincoln's assassination rings false. Was Booth truly the mastermind or were other, more powerful forces pulling the strings?

From Maryland to New York City, from Indiana to Washington, Fraser and Cook track down key figures and witnesses, including Mary Surratt's neurotic daughter Anna; Booth's nephew, actor Creston Clarke; and Clarke's attractive business manager, Mrs. Eliza Scott. Piece by piece the truth emerges, separating fact from rumor, innocent from guilty, and revealing a story of greed, ambition, courage, and tragedy.

Blending real and fictional characters, The Lincoln Deception is a superbly researched, brilliantly plotted and thoroughly gripping mystery that explores one of the nation's darkest and most fascinating eras and the conspiracy that changed world history.

HUBBY'S REVIEW:

I liked this story but there were moments that I could not keep with it and had to come back to it. I did really like the two main characters. I really liked the one nick name "Speed". I could get with his character a little more than the other one. The point of the book on whether Booth acted or came up with the plot by himself we will never know. But some of the points that were brought out were interesting. I wish I could have gotten into the story a little more but for me it just did not do it all the way through. I got this book from Net Galley.