The First Assassin by John J. Miller

Lincoln's has been elected President and, according to secessionists, snuck into Washington like a coward. General Winfield Scott, hero of the war with Mexico is the big shot of DC and has assigned Colonel Rook to head Lincoln's security. And Rook sees conspiracies around every corner.

Langston Bennett is Old South. Home on Charleston's Battery and a plantation with plenty of slaves. He hates everything Lincoln stands for and works out a plan to hire a Cuban mercenary to kill Lincoln. Lucius, his childhood friend and personal slave, overhears the plot.

At the Bennett plantation, Lucius talks his granddaughter into sneaking off and to work her way to DC and warn someone in the White House. Oh, when Bennett was getting his photo taken, Lucius quietly has the photographer's assistant, a young black boy, to sneak a photo of the assassin as he leaves Bennett's battery home. It is this photo that  will get Portia, the granddaughter, into the White House.

The assassin, who goes by Mazorca, arrives in DC, seeks out the help of a society lady who is loyal to the cause. Plans how he'll kill Lincoln and begins preparations, including knocking off a bunch of folks along the way.

Rook senses doom and ramps up surveillance efforts, despite General Scott's insistence that Rook cease. Rook has to tighten the noose without alerting Scott or Mazorca and be prepared, just in case, to take the bullet.

I won't say this was great or that it was just so-so. It was cleverly plotted and paced with lots of content about simple life on the plantation, in DC, of travel in the pre-war south. The book picked up when Rook was in the center of the reader's attention. This story about the beginnings of the Secret Service (which didn't become official until Lincoln signed the paper's on the day he was assassinated) was pretty entertaining. As historical fiction goes, this was decent, not spectacular, but decent.

East Coast Don

The First Assassin by John J. Miller

This is a work of historical fiction which takes place in Washington, D.C., and is about an early attempt to assassinate the newly elected Abraham Lincoln. The author uses some real figures, like Lincoln, Winfield Scott (hero of the Mexican War, just riding out his time until retirement), and John Hay, Lincoln’s chief of staff. The book is loosely based on some facts, but the assassination attempt is entirely fiction. Miller gives a pretty good view of the hatred of Lincoln by the Southerners and the hope of the slaves for Lincoln to bring them freedom. Lincoln is a lovable, gregarious, and charismatic figure who is saddled with the suddenly divided nation, as well as the mundane aspects of running a government. Miller creates one plantation owner, Langston Bennett, who funds the effort to kill Lincoln, as well as the beautiful seductress, Violet Grenier, a woman with southern sympathies who uses sex to get secrets from the Union soldiers and White House confidants to pass onto Bennett and other Southern leaders. The assassin is a one-named mystery man from Latin America, Mazorca. Miller depicts the lives of the slaves on Bennett’s plantation, who are treated better than most slaves. One of them is Portia, who escapes the plantation in an attempt to inform Lincoln of the plot on his life. I think East Coast Don will appreciate the descriptions of 1861 Washington. While this book was endorsed by our favorites Brad Thor and Vince Flynn, I found it disappointing. Flynn likened it to “Day of the Jackel,” just written in an earlier period, but First Assassin did not move nearly so fast as that. Actually, it took me almost a week to work my way through this one and I really only finished out of my usual compulsion to do so. There were no real surprises at the end – all of it was very predictable (but then, I knew Lincoln did not die at the very start of his presidency).