Murder in the Lincoln White House
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
March 4, 1861: On the day of Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, the last thing anyone wants is any sort of hitch in the proceedings—let alone murder! Fortunately the president has young Adam Quinn by his side . . .
Lincoln’s trusted entourage is on their guard. Allan Pinkerton, head of the president’s security team, is wary of potential assassins. And Lincoln’s oldest friend, Joshua Speed, is by his side, along with Speed’s nephew, Adam Quinn—called back from the Kansas frontier to serve as the president’s assistant and jack-of-all-trades.
Despite the tight security, trouble comes nonetheless. A man is found stabbed to death in a nearby room, only yards from the president. Not wishing to cause alarm, Lincoln dispatches young Quinn to discreetly investigate. Though he is new to Washington, DC, he must navigate through high society, political personages, and a city preparing for war in order to solve the crime. He finds unexpected allies in a determined female journalist named Sophie Gates, and Dr. Hilton, a free man of color. Together they must make haste to apprehend a killer. Nothing less than the fate of the nation is at stake . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in Washington, D.C., this uneven series launch from Gleason (Siberian Treasure) opens on the day of Abraham Lincoln's inauguration as president in March 1861. Adam Quinn, who lost an arm protecting the president-elect, is now serving as a sort of jack-of-all-trades on Lincoln's staff. During the festivities that evening, a man is stabbed to death in a room adjacent to the ballroom in a temporary building erected for the inauguration. Since the president doesn't want his wife, Mary, disturbed, he asks Adam to investigate quietly. Adam learns that the dead man is a banker, Custer Billings, who was arguing earlier in the evening with Hurst Lemagne, a Southerner, whose fetching daughter, Constance, was Adam's dance partner at the ball. Gleason does a good job evoking the period with convincing detail, but she fails to make her lead, whose previous investigative experience was as an animal tracker, an impressive sleuth. Other authors have used the Civil War era as the background for a whodunit more effectively.
