cover image Land of Wolves: The Return of Lincoln’s Bodyguard

Land of Wolves: The Return of Lincoln’s Bodyguard

TJ Turner. Oceanview (Midpoint, dist.), $26.95 (336p) ISBN 978-1-60809-202-4

Turner’s second alternative history featuring Joseph Foster (after 2015’s Lincoln’s Bodyguard) provides an imaginative answer to the question he poses in an author’s note: “What would America have looked like if our greatest president had lived?” In 1874, Lincoln (who eventually resigned from office), Joseph (who saved the president’s life in 1865), and Joseph’s love interest, Molly Ferguson, are living in Tennessee. A period of relative tranquility ends when Joseph’s mother, a Native American, is tortured and murdered; before she dies, she implores Joseph to search for his daughter, Aurora, who has been abducted by a sinister group of businessmen known as the Consortium, “the Confederation of Industrial Barons who have kept the flames of conflict alive after the Civil War in order to amass great wealth.” Joseph’s search takes him out west, where he meets another major historical figure of the era. Some readers may find that development a stretch, but all should applaud Turner’s sympathetic focus on the plight of native peoples. [em]Agent: Elizabeth Kracht, Kimberley Cameron & Associates. (May) [/em]