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The Lincoln Conspiracy: A Novel
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Random House Publishing Group 2012
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Description
A nation shattered by its president’s murder
Two diaries that reveal the true scope of an American conspiracy
A detective determined to bring the truth to light, no matter what it costs him
 
From award-winning journalist Timothy L. O’Brien comes a gripping historical thriller that poses a provocative question: What if the plot to assassinate President Lincoln was wider and more sinister than we ever imagined?
 
In late spring of 1865, as America mourns the death of its leader, Washington, D.C., police detective Temple McFadden makes a startling discovery. Strapped to the body of a dead man at the B&O Railroad station are two diaries, two documents that together reveal the true depth of the Lincoln conspiracy. Securing the diaries will put Temple’s life in jeopardy—and will endanger the fragile peace of a nation still torn by war.
 
Temple’s quest to bring the conspirators to justice takes him on a perilous journey through the gaslit streets of the Civil War–era capital, into bawdy houses and back alleys where ruthless enemies await him in every shadowed corner. Aided by an underground network of friends—and by his wife, Fiona, a nurse who possesses a formidable arsenal of medicinal potions—Temple must stay one step ahead of Lafayette Baker, head of the Union Army’s spy service. Along the way, he’ll run from or rely on Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s fearsome secretary of war; the legendary Scottish spymaster Allan Pinkerton; abolitionist Sojourner Truth; the photographer Alexander Gardner; and many others.
 
Bristling with twists and building to a climax that will leave readers gasping, The Lincoln Conspiracy offers a riveting new account of what truly motivated the assassination of one of America’s most beloved presidents—and who participated in the plot to derail the train of liberty that Lincoln set in motion.
Praise for The Lincoln Conspiracy
 
“History as a dangerous, inventive game . . . fascinating.”—Martin Cruz Smith
 
“A notable fiction debut with an appealing detective hero and plenty of action. It gets off to a fast start and never stops.”—Library Journal
 
“A historical puzzle as labyrinthine and grandiose as Scheherazade’s tales . . . As clever as Sherlock Holmes, as wily as Pendergast in Preston and Child’s series, and wickedly funny on top of it all, the irresistible McFadden is due to return in a sequel—thank goodness!”—Booklist (starred review)
 
“[A] fast-paced, well-conceived adventure . . . There is nothing more fun than losing oneself in O’Brien’s rich and riotous mixture of reimagination and fact.”—Historical Novels Review
 
“Gripping . . . The history and overall arc of the novel are superb . . . and Temple McFadden proves to be a worthwhile hero.”—Associated Press
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
09/18/2012
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780345535597
ASIN:
B007PFDLTK
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APA Citation (style guide)

Timothy L. O'Brien. (2012). The Lincoln Conspiracy: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Timothy L. O'Brien. 2012. The Lincoln Conspiracy: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Timothy L. O'Brien, The Lincoln Conspiracy: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group, 2012.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Timothy L. O'Brien. The Lincoln Conspiracy: A Novel. Random House Publishing Group, 2012.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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      • fileAs: O'Brien, Timothy L.
      • bioText: Timothy L. O’Brien is the executive editor at the Huffington Post, where he edited the 2012 Pulitzer Prize–winning series about severely wounded war veterans, “Beyond the Battlefield.” Prior to joining the Huffington Post he was a reporter and editor at The New York Times, where helped oversee “The Reckoning,” a series about the financial crisis that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009. A graduate of Georgetown University, he holds three master's degrees—in U.S. History, Business, and Journalism—from Columbia University. He lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife and two children.
      • name: Timothy L. O'Brien
imprint
Ballantine Books
publishDate
2012-09-18T00:00:00-04:00
isOwnedByCollections
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title
The Lincoln Conspiracy
fullDescription
A nation shattered by its president’s murder
Two diaries that reveal the true scope of an American conspiracy
A detective determined to bring the truth to light, no matter what it costs him
 
From award-winning journalist Timothy L. O’Brien comes a gripping historical thriller that poses a provocative question: What if the plot to assassinate President Lincoln was wider and more sinister than we ever imagined?
 
In late spring of 1865, as America mourns the death of its leader, Washington, D.C., police detective Temple McFadden makes a startling discovery. Strapped to the body of a dead man at the B&O Railroad station are two diaries, two documents that together reveal the true depth of the Lincoln conspiracy. Securing the diaries will put Temple’s life in jeopardy—and will endanger the fragile peace of a nation still torn by war.
 
Temple’s quest to bring the conspirators to justice takes him on a perilous journey through the gaslit streets of the Civil War–era capital, into bawdy houses and back alleys where ruthless enemies await him in every shadowed corner. Aided by an underground network of friends—and by his wife, Fiona, a nurse who possesses a formidable arsenal of medicinal potions—Temple must stay one step ahead of Lafayette Baker, head of the Union Army’s spy service. Along the way, he’ll run from or rely on Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s fearsome secretary of war; the legendary Scottish spymaster Allan Pinkerton; abolitionist Sojourner Truth; the photographer Alexander Gardner; and many others.
 
Bristling with twists and building to a climax that will leave readers gasping, The Lincoln Conspiracy offers a riveting new account of what truly motivated the assassination of one of America’s most beloved presidents—and who participated in the plot to derail the train of liberty that Lincoln set in motion.
Praise for The Lincoln Conspiracy
 
“History as a dangerous, inventive game . . . fascinating.”—Martin Cruz Smith
 
“A notable fiction debut with an appealing detective hero and plenty of action. It gets off to a fast start and never stops.”—Library Journal
 
“A historical puzzle as labyrinthine and grandiose as Scheherazade’s tales . . . As clever as Sherlock Holmes, as wily as Pendergast in Preston and Child’s series, and wickedly funny on top of it all, the irresistible McFadden is due to return in a sequel—thank goodness!”—Booklist (starred review)
 
“[A] fast-paced, well-conceived adventure . . . There is nothing more fun than losing oneself in O’Brien’s rich and riotous mixture of reimagination and fact.”—Historical Novels Review
 
“Gripping . . . The history and overall arc of the novel are superb . . . and Temple McFadden proves to be a worthwhile hero.”—Associated Press
reviews
      • premium: False
      • source: Associated Press
      • content: "History as a dangerous, inventive game . . . fascinating."
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        July 16, 2012
        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.

      • premium: True
      • source: Kirkus
      • content:

        September 15, 2012
        Huffington Post national editor O'Brien (TrumpNation, 2005) ventures into fiction in this historical thriller, featuring an 1865 detective digging into the murder of Abraham Lincoln. Metropolitan Police Inspector Temple McFadden sees a messenger get his throat slit at the B&O Railroad station in Washington, D.C. Temple takes a package containing a journal and a diary from the man's corpse. It turns out that these are no ordinary finds: One is the diary of Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the recently slain president, while the other was written by Lincoln's murderer, John Wilkes Booth, and includes mysterious coded messages. McFadden immediately finds himself targeted by dangerous men who are after the package, and he enlists the help of several friends in an investigation that reveals an undiscovered plot behind Lincoln's assassination. O'Brien's fiction debut joins other recent Lincoln-related historical novels, such as Stephen L. Carter's alternate-history tale The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln and William Martin's The Lincoln Letter, a somewhat similar mystery that revolves around a lost Lincoln diary. O'Brien has delivered a serviceable thriller, even if he often leans a bit too heavily on brutal violence to shake things up. He has clearly put in a fair amount of research here, and he revels in the historical details he scatters liberally throughout the narrative; indeed, he occasionally drifts into history-lecture territory. That said, O'Brien does make clever use of real-life historical figures throughout, including such notables as Mrs. Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, private detective Allan Pinkerton, photographer Alexander Gardner and journalist Noah Brooks, among many others. A fair historical mystery that will most interest dedicated fans of Lincolniana.

        COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        April 1, 2012

        We know why Lincoln was assassinated, right? Wrong, says O'Brien, national editor of the Huffington Post, who has teased a theory out of the historical record and turned it into a thriller. When a friend is slain at the B&O railroad station, Det. Temple McFadden finds two diaries in his pocket: one belonging to Mary Todd Lincoln and one to John Wilkes Booth.

        Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

      • premium: True
      • source: Booklist
      • content:

        Starred review from August 1, 2012
        O'Brien, national editor at The Huffington Post, delivers a first novel that unveils a historical puzzle as labyrinthine and grandiose as Scheherazade's tales. President Lincoln is dead, and Booth has escaped. But was the assassination of the man who freed the slaves part of a larger, more insidious conspiracy? While going about his business at the railway station, police detective Temple McFadden witnesses a murder, steals the corpse's carryall, gets in a fight, and rides away wounded on a purloined horse, followed by unknown assailants. Two diaries from the carryall, belonging to Mrs. Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth, are the objects of interest to all concerned, but by the time McFadden is caught, he no longer has the package. So begins our introduction to a maze of characters, events, and motives that threatens to leave us completely unmoored. How can a wounded, cane-walking, poetry-quoting Irish detective find a killer, return a diary, best the bullies, protect his wife, and unmask the culprits behind the conspiracy? As clever as Sherlock Holmes, as wily as Pendergast in Preston and Child's series, and wickedly funny on top of it all, the irrresistible McFadden is due to return in a sequelthank goodness!(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

      • premium: True
      • source: Library Journal
      • content:

        September 1, 2012

        Was Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth as straightforward as it seems? Or was it part of a larger conspiracy? Who wanted Lincoln out of the way? Temple McFadden witnesses a murder at a train station and finds two journals secreted on the dead man's body. One belongs to Mary Todd Lincoln, whose journal entries hint at hidden reasons for her husband's murder. The second is Booth's, which contains messages in code. Pursued by enemies on all sides, Temple doesn't know whom to trust. VERDICT O'Brien, national editor at the Huffington Post, makes a notable fiction debut with an appealing detective hero and plenty of action. It gets off to a fast start and never stops. The ending is fuzzy but paves the way for a promised sequel. In the wake of Seth Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Stephen L. Carter's The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln, and William Martin's The Lincoln Letter, the time is ripe for a good conspiracy novel about the Lincoln assassination.--David Keymer, Modesto, CA

        Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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A nation shattered by its president’s murder
Two diaries that reveal the true scope of an American conspiracy
A detective determined to bring the truth to light, no matter what it costs him
 
From award-winning journalist Timothy L. O’Brien comes a gripping historical thriller that poses a provocative question: What if the plot to assassinate President Lincoln was wider and more sinister than we ever imagined?
 
In late spring of 1865, as America mourns the death of its leader, Washington, D.C., police detective Temple McFadden makes a startling discovery. Strapped to the body of a dead man at the B&O Railroad station are two diaries, two documents that together reveal the true depth of the Lincoln conspiracy. Securing the diaries will put Temple’s life in jeopardy—and will endanger the fragile peace of a nation still torn by war.
 
Temple’s quest to bring the conspirators to...
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