Rating: 
Summary: The Lonely Hearts Assassin
Review: This is a colorless telling of the Lincoln assassination but, to those suffering from inflated verbiage and "recreated" personal accounts of historical events, the absence of editorial opinion may be one of the strengths of this book. Author Jim Bishop gives us an hour by hour account of events leading up to Lincoln's murder. 9:00 a.m.; 10:00 a.m....etc...written as one would write a newspaper story. The effect is occasionally dull as everyday life, but my purpose in reading the book was to garner the unembellished facts of the Lincoln tragedy and to learn some things I had omitted from my education. This book did that very well for me. It also gave me insight into contemporary feelings and thought during the last days of the American Civil War.Much of what I learned from reading this book is well known by more astute readers of history, but I was surprised to find out the larger dimensions of the conspiracy to murder Lincoln. I didn't know, for example, that Booth and his fellow conspirators tried to kill William Stanton, Secretary of Defense; and vice-president Andrew Johnson, and others on the same evening that John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln with a single-shot derringer at Ford's theatre. I didn't realize that the president's wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, was such a hard pill to swallow and I was completely mystified by the cast of characters who gravitated to and were lead astray by the egoistic and self-absorbed actor who saw himself as the saviour of the doomed Confederacy. I feel now, after reading this book, a great deal of the gloom that settled down on the nation's capital, much like America felt the pall that fell upon the nation after the Kennedy assassination. It is gratifying to know that most of these miscreants and bumblers who changed history were hanged. Nonetheless, the tragedy always looms larger than whatever satisfaction may be derived from the execution of justice. That heroic men and women can be laid low by the idiot's bullet, that history can be altered by the serendipitous juxtaposition of events, that the best energies of our universe can be thwarted by back-shooting cowards...are facts that haunt us especially much today as we struggle to make sense of political terror and assassinations of large dimension.
Rating: 
Summary: Haunting recreation of a fateful day
Review: This is a tremendous book. It tries to faithfully re-create what occured on April 14, 1865. It gives background of the previous couple days. On the day of the assassination, Lincoln holds a cabinet meeting, the contents of which are related in the book. Lincoln's mind seemed to be telling him he was doomed. He had dreams about his death, and accepted the inevitable. JW Booth's planning of the evil acts, which included an brutal attack on Seward and his family as well as an aborted effort against Andrew Johnson, is gone into with fascinating detail. Highly recommended for history, Civil War and Lincoln buffs.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting recreation of a fateful day
Review: This is a tremendous book. It tries to faithfully re-create what occured on April 14, 1865. It gives background of the previous couple days. On the day of the assassination, Lincoln holds a cabinet meeting, the contents of which are related in the book. Lincoln's mind seemed to be telling him he was doomed. He had dreams about his death, and accepted the inevitable. JW Booth's planning of the evil acts, which included an brutal attack on Seward and his family as well as an aborted effort against Andrew Johnson, is gone into with fascinating detail. Highly recommended for history, Civil War and Lincoln buffs.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling and unforgettable!
Review: This is a tremendously suspenseful and thorough depiction of the last day of Lincoln's life. Bishop chose to include only the minimum of details that led to Lincoln's assassination (reading David Herbert Donald's "Lincoln" beforehand proved helpful to me), and barely any details of what the conspirators faced afterwards (I followed this book with Gene Smith's "American Gothic" to complete my understanding of what happened to them). The payoff is a book that allows the reader to see the movements of the principals in a suspenseful, clock-is-ticking fashion. You couldn't have paid me to put this book aside!
Rating:
Summary: Gripping from start to finish.
Review: This is one of the best historical books I have ever read. I know everyone has heard this before, but I could not put this book down. As you read the hour-by-hour account of Lincoln's last day, Bishop makes you feel as though you are there on the fringe watching as the minutes tick away. You can almost hear every conversation, observe their non-verbal cues, and feel the emotion as the cabinet sits around the table talking about what to do after the war is over. I strongly recommend this book to anyone regardless of age.
Rating: 
Summary: The Tragic Day
Review: This novel helps with the understanding of the events that led up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Unknown to him adn his family it started off as a regular day and ended as one of the most tragic days in the history of the United States. This book takes the reader through the minds and plans of conspirators and helps with the reasoning behind the assassinaton. For example, taking the president as a hostage to try and get what the Confederate states wanted out of the war. On the day of the assassination, President Lincoln had received notice from the people who were to accompany him to the play that they would not be coming. As a faithful president, he still attended the play to show his support, not knowing that it would cause his death. This book also helped to show the arguements that Lincoln went through with Mary Todd about pubilc appearences and even going to Ford's Theater that night. Taking and hour by hour look at Lincoln's life helps to familiarize the reader with Lincoln and his family and his usual daily tasks. It helps show Lincoln as the man that he is instead of just the president.
Rating:
Summary: The Tragic Day
Review: This novel helps with the understanding of the events that led up to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Unknown to him adn his family it started off as a regular day and ended as one of the most tragic days in the history of the United States. This book takes the reader through the minds and plans of conspirators and helps with the reasoning behind the assassinaton. For example, taking the president as a hostage to try and get what the Confederate states wanted out of the war. On the day of the assassination, President Lincoln had received notice from the people who were to accompany him to the play that they would not be coming. As a faithful president, he still attended the play to show his support, not knowing that it would cause his death. This book also helped to show the arguements that Lincoln went through with Mary Todd about pubilc appearences and even going to Ford's Theater that night. Taking and hour by hour look at Lincoln's life helps to familiarize the reader with Lincoln and his family and his usual daily tasks. It helps show Lincoln as the man that he is instead of just the president.
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