May 8, 2017
Putnam successfully integrates the politics of 1837 America into his solid second mystery featuring Abraham Lincoln, then a practicing attorney, and his real-life close friend Joshua Speed (after 2016’s These Honored Dead). When Speed boards his family’s steamboat War Eagle to look into why its profits have declined, the captain claims that he needs to pay a fixed percentage of the income to a corrupt port inspector. The explanation leaves Speed searching for another way to replenish his family’s fortunes, which have suffered from his ailing father’s imprudent business decisions. Prominent abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy plays a key role in the action. Meanwhile, Speed and Lincoln—who has been traveling around Illinois handling a variety of cases—get involved in a murder investigation after the body of John W. Jones, an unsuccessful gambler Speed meets on the War Eagle, is found floating in the Mississippi. The dramatic denouement, which features Lincoln’s vaunted courtroom skills, provides a satisfying resolution. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group.
May 15, 2017
Kentucky gentleman Joshua Speed teams up with his friend Abraham Lincoln for the second time (These Honored Dead, 2016) to bring justice to a Mississippi riverboat in 1837.Speed's been called from his Illinois general store, where Lincoln rents a bed, to investigate the operations of the War Eagle, a steamboat his father owns. The War Eagle has been losing money, and her captain may be skimming off the top. Before Speed can inspect the books, a planter's son named Jones loses his family's fortune to a crooked gambler, threatens to kill the gambler, and turns up dead in the river the next morning. The local constable tries to pin the murder on Jones' romantic rival, painter George Bingham, but Speed and Lincoln are convinced of his innocence. Since Lincoln must travel on with the circuit court, Speed, accompanied by his spirited sister, heads downriver to learn more about the other point of the love triangle, Mississippi belle Tessie Roman. At her father's plantation, Speed, beginning to acknowledge the evils of slavery, must make a run for it through a cypress swamp, following the path that slaves have taken toward freedom. Armed with the evidence Speed's gathered, Lincoln makes an argument that brings about justice--or at least the closest they can come under America's peculiar institution. Enough historical accuracy to satisfy a Civil War re-enactor and enough courtroom proceedings to reveal the author as the Harvard-trained attorney that he is. A mystery for history buffs and legal eagles.
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May 15, 2017
Putnam's second in his Lincoln and Speed mystery series (These Honored Dead, 2016) is an entertaining and well-researched murder mystery set along the Mississippi River. Joshua Speed arrives aboard the War Eagle steamboat and witnesses John W. Jones, a young planter, lose all his money in a rigged card game. Jones threatens the ship's captain and the next day is found dead in the river. Abraham Lincoln, traveling on the Illinois legal circuit, agrees to defend the artist accused of the murder. Speed and his sister, Martha, go undercover to investigate possible leads at a plantation along the river and on the War Eagle, while Lincoln prepares for the trial. This is both a mystery and a legal thriller, with well-paced courtroom scenes as well as intrigue. Through the story, Putnam explores abolitionism, the horrors of slavery, and economic upheaval in the antebellum U.S. Putnam's notes provide context for the historical figures who appear as characters and demonstrate his expertise as a Lincoln scholar.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)