Angel in the Fog

Turner’s uneven third historical (after 2017’s Land of Wolves), a prequel, opens with a harrowing scene set in New Orleans in May 1860. Molly Ferguson, the love interest of Joseph Foster, who stopped John Wilkes Booth from assassinating Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in 2015’s Lincoln’s Bodyguard, witnesses a lynch mob hang her father, the owner of a plantation that was profitable without slaves, and burn down the family house. Flash forward to February 1861; Molly is a prisoner in a Baltimore brothel, where her perspicacity brings her to the attention of a Pinkerton operative and, ultimately, Allan Pinkerton himself. She’s rescued from her life as a prostitute and enlisted to help foil a plan by Southern sympathizers to assassinate Lincoln when his train passes through Baltimore en route to Washington, D.C., for his inauguration. Too many plot contrivances, including a melodramatic late reveal, make this less enjoyable than its predecessors. [em]Agent: Elizabeth Kracht, Kimberley Cameron & Assoc. (Apr.) [/em]