THE WEB OF CONSPIRACY

by Theodore Roscoe ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1959

In this carefully documented book on the murder of Lincoln, the author, stating that his death is a real murder mystery with the killer, Booth, and his gang,tools of the real criminals, who escaped, follows the thesis of Otto Eisenschiml's Why Was Lincoln Murdered? He names Secretary of War Stanton as leader of a vast conspiracy to kidnap or murder Lincoln, Seward, Grant, Johnson and others and seize the government for himself; his actions following the murder and the fact that the official records of the case were not released by the War Department until the 1930's may indicate that this theory, never proved, is correct. That a conspiracy of some sort existed is also the fact that the half-insane actor Booth and his collection of bungling criminals must have had some official backing:- Lincoln was refused normal protection on the night of his death, Seward was viciously attacked, Grant and Johnson escaped by accident, the Washington police and the War Department made little effort to arrest identified criminals and prosecuted others with incredible viciousness -- and perhaps let Booth escape, etc. Overlong, sometimes over-written but containing excellent biographical sketches and blessedly free of fictional conversations and private thoughts, this exciting book should appeal to readers of Jim Bishop's Day Lincoln Was Shot, to addicts of biography, Civil War history, Lincolniana and true crime stories, and to amateur detectives of both sexes; a book for lending libraries, it also belongs in Civil War collections.

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1959

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Prentice-Hall

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1959

Categories: NONFICTION