The latest historical thriller by New York Times Notable mystery
author Lawrence Goldstone plunges readers into the dramatic events
surrounding the assassination of President William McKinley.
Just after 4 p.m. on September 6, 1901, twenty-eight year old anarchist
Leon Czolgosz pumped two shots into the chest and abdomen of President
William McKinley. Czolgosz had been on a receiving line waiting to shake
the president's hand, his revolver concealed in an oversized bandage
covering his right hand and wrist. McKinley had two Secret Service
agents by his side, but neither made a move to stop the assailant. After
he was apprehended, Czolgosz said simply, "I done my duty."
Both law enforcement and the press insisted that Czolgosz was merely the
tip of a vast and murderous conspiracy, likely instigated by the "high
priestess of anarchy," Emma Goldman. To untangle its threads and bring
the remaining conspirators to justice, the president's most senior
advisors choose two other Secret Service agents, Walter George and Harry
Swayne. What they uncover will not only absolve the anarchists, but also
expose a plot that will threaten the foundations of American democracy,
and likely cost them their lives.
As in his other brilliant novels combining history and fiction, Lawrence
Goldstone creates a remarkable and chilling tableau, filled with
suspense and unexpected turns of fate, detailing events that actually
might have happened. As Publishers Weekly observed in its starred
review of the "exceptional thriller," Deadly Cure, "Goldstone again
blends fact and fiction seamlessly."
