Saturday 20 July 2019

#BookReview Assassin of Shadows by Lawrence Goldstone @FreshFiction @Pegasus_Books

Assassin of Shadows: A Novel by Lawrence Goldstone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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.


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Two secret service men, Walter George and Harry Swayne are tasked with trying to find out the truth about the assassin attempt of President William McKinley. The shooter, anarchist Leon Czolgosz words after the deed is "I done my duty". But could it all be a conspiracy? That anarchism is just a pretext for something else? The more they dig the more they uncover clues that point to that Czolgosz was just the fall guy...

READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW OVER AT FRESH FICTION!

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