Abraham Lincoln: The Enigmatic President

I last read  The Killer Angels  four decades ago. I liked it the first time, but really grew to appreciate it with this reading. Great story, well written, and enlightening. My project,  Maelstrom , is also a historical novel that alternates between Union and Confederate viewpoints, so I appreciated the difficulty of portraying events in an entertaining manner while remaining historically accurate.  The advantage of historical novelizations is that they can bring characters to life and make readers feel as if they were present when events unfold. Novels are first and foremost stories, and stories must move. History has a way of unfolding in a haphazard fashion, hindering storytelling. The difficulty is maintaining a good pace while remaining faithful to the historical presentation. In this reading, I could lift myself above the story and admire the craft. Sharra does an excellent job and deserved the Pulitzer Prize he won for  The Killer Angels .

I wrote The Shut Mouth Society , so this is a description plus critiques from other reviewers. This modern-day thriller is a typical chase novel à la Robert Ludlum . The Ludlum formula for this genre involves a man and woman with an “odd meet” (rather than a “cute meet”).  The couple is accused of a crime and then chased by good guys and bad guys until they save themselves by unraveling a mystery that threatens the social order. In The Shut Mouth Society , the mystery is a secret society formed after the Civil War that threatens to take control of Mexico. A chase is launched when a small-town police Commander and a renowned professor assess the validity of a pre-presidential document in Lincoln's hand. Abe Lincoln is interwoven throughout the story as they must examine his life and motivations to solve the mystery. The Shut Mouth Society is a work of fiction, but I did extensive research on Lincoln to craft an exciting, historically accurate story. The novel was a finalist in ...