President Lincoln’s Spy
by Steven Wilson
Published by Kensington Books(to come)
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Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart
The American Civil War is four months old when Steven Wilson’s new novel, President Lincoln’s Spy, opens. A regular Army soldier and stronger Union supporter, Captain Thomas Fitzgerald Dunaway is doing his best to get his new soldiers ready for their first battle. As they are about to open fire on Confederate forces near Bull Run, Fitz receives orders to fall back. He can’t believe what he is being ordered to do as the Rebs march closer and closer. Fitz knowing and wittingly disobeys order and routs the Rebs.
The victor nonetheless, Fitz made the soldier’s mistake: he disobeyed a direct order and finds himself in the brig. Released two months later to his friend, Colonel Will Moore, Fitz is re-assigned to Washington, D.C. and the War Department. The hot-headed captain is frustrated that he may spend the remainder of the war as a clerk, far away from battlefield excitement.
However, the Secretary of War has other plans for the young soldier. Secretary Prescott wants Fitz to join the president’s guard, the detail of soldiers’ assigned to ensure that President Lincoln remain safe as he wanders around the Capitol.
Prescott also has another assignment for Fitz. That is to pretend to be a Southern sympathizer and become a spy, an agent who would infiltrate any assassination gangs. Fitz is outraged and unsure that he could pull off that much acting, but when Prescott dangles a promotion to a full Colonel, Fitz gives in. Unsure of what to do, but determine to lead again, Fitz relocates to the Royal Boarding House and begins his distasteful duty. Pretending to be a bitter officer, it isn’t long before Fritz is approached with plans to join a band of righteous Southerners in their lofty ambition to kill the President of the United States.
The situations Fitz finds himself in aren’t surprising, but the story is nicely plotted. The only point that I would argue with author Wilson about would be the number of times Fitz is almost frozen to death, yet he manages to triumph in each situation without any lingering physical repercussions. There are some twists that I didn’t see coming, thereby making President Lincoln’s Spy a mighty good read.
Armchair Interviews agrees.
Author’s Web site: http:www.//HuntersandtheHunted.com