Review of ‘Saving Lincoln’

Posted on May 2, 2015 Updated on April 27, 2015

Beth Wendland ran away from her home in New Jersey, ending up in New Orleans during the Civil War, an actress in a theater troupe that dealt as much in prostitution as plays. When the head of the troupe sells her to a wealthy local brothel owner, she is treated almost as a slave, until she finally escapes. On the run, wanted for a murder she didn’t commit, Beth makes her way to Richmond and the home of her aunt, a Union sympathizer.

Beth becomes a spy for the Union, handled by a young Union officer who falls in love with her. When she learns of a plot to use a wagon loaded with explosives to assassinate Lincoln and his top officers, she risks life and limb to thwart the dastardly plan.

Saving Lincoln by Robert Kresge is an action-filled historical thriller that skillfully weaves history and fiction in a story that has twists and turns on every page, as Beth evades a vicious Confederate spymaster and renegade Rebels in her quest to avoid a catastrophe, while trying to protect her relatives and friends as the Confederacy is in its last throes and Richmond has fallen. Kresge paints a sweeping picture of the human side of one of America’s deadliest wars, and gives us a heroine patterned after the many women who risked all to help save the Union. This is a must-read story for anyone interested in Civil War  history, or who just likes a spine-tingling story.

I’d love to give this book five stars, but there were a few typos and format errors that cause me to only give it four.