The Lincoln Conspiracy

Huffington Post editor O’Brien (Bad Bet) fails to make the most of a promising premise in his fiction debut, a thriller set in the spring of 1865. When Washington, D.C., police detective Temple McFadden retrieves a package carried by a courier he knows shortly after the man’s throat is cut at the B&O train station, McFadden is stunned to discover that it contains two diaries—one written by the just widowed Mary Todd Lincoln, and the other the apparent work of John Wilkes Booth himself. A cursory reading of both suggests that there was more to the plot to murder the president than the official account would have the public believe. The policeman finds himself caught between powerful competing forces, each with their own reasons for getting access to the documents. O’Brien offers an intriguing theory for the motive behind the assassination, but readers will find more suspense in George O’Toole’s similarly themed The Cosgrove Report. Agent: Andrew Blauner, Blauner Books Literary. (Sept.)