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A review by topdragon
The Lincoln Letter: A Peter Fallon Novel by William Martin
5.0
Another great historical fiction/modern day thriller combo book featuring treasure hunter and rare book dealer Peter Fallon and his girlfriend Evangeline Carrington.
I hadn’t planned on reading this one just yet. I love this series so much that I don’t like to read the latest one if I don’t have the next one already in my possession. I’m well aware the next ([b:Bound for Gold|36607000|Bound for Gold (Peter Fallon, #6)|William Martin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1515332988l/36607000._SY75_.jpg|58361557]) has been published but alas I am not yet an owner. But there I was, with an itch for a good solid historical fiction read, looking over my extensive TBR shelves and this one practically jumped out at me. Why take a chance when I have such confidence in William Martin?
Happily, I can report this one is another home run. The plot jumps off straight away as Peter gets an email with an attached copy of a letter from Abraham Lincoln to somebody named Lieutenant Hutchinson. He notices the date of the letter is the same day that Lincoln was shot so this may have been the last letter he ever wrote. No doubt a story lay behind it and so Peter begins the search.
As always, William Martin masterfully shifts back and forth from the present-day treasure hunt to the actual historical setting, each part combining to tell us readers the full story. The historical setting this time is the relatively short span of 1862 until the end of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. The main character here is the same Lieutenant Halsey Hutchinson referenced in the letter, a battle-wounded veteran now working in the telegraph office where Lincoln often visited and where he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. But poor Halsey falls into a series of predicaments beyond his control resulting in all sorts of misadventure. Chief among them is a lost diary of Lincoln’s (a “daybook”) that details his true thoughts and hesitancy to pursue emancipation.
Meanwhile Peter Fallon and his friends in the present day uncover the fact of a missing diary and of course recognize its historical value. The monetary value is so high that the hunt becomes extremely dangerous with more than one bad guy willing to kill for it.
I’ve always felt a sense of an emotional connection to the history described in a William Martin novel but this time it seems even more intense. Perhaps this is due to the subject matter, dealing with one of the most volatile periods in American history. I’ve read many books about the Civil War and about Lincoln but was nevertheless pulled into this one once again. This is not a book about the Civil War; there are few scenes of battles. But there are a couple scenes in and around battles, such as in field hospitals and we do get to experience actual historical characters such as Clara Barton and others that many readers may not have realized were there such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. But most of what is happening in the war at any given time in the novel is related through news coming in to the telegraph office, somebody reading a newspaper, casualty count notices, etc.
I could go on and on, but suffice to say, I am once again in awe of William Martin’s work and look forward to many more books to come.
I hadn’t planned on reading this one just yet. I love this series so much that I don’t like to read the latest one if I don’t have the next one already in my possession. I’m well aware the next ([b:Bound for Gold|36607000|Bound for Gold (Peter Fallon, #6)|William Martin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1515332988l/36607000._SY75_.jpg|58361557]) has been published but alas I am not yet an owner. But there I was, with an itch for a good solid historical fiction read, looking over my extensive TBR shelves and this one practically jumped out at me. Why take a chance when I have such confidence in William Martin?
Happily, I can report this one is another home run. The plot jumps off straight away as Peter gets an email with an attached copy of a letter from Abraham Lincoln to somebody named Lieutenant Hutchinson. He notices the date of the letter is the same day that Lincoln was shot so this may have been the last letter he ever wrote. No doubt a story lay behind it and so Peter begins the search.
As always, William Martin masterfully shifts back and forth from the present-day treasure hunt to the actual historical setting, each part combining to tell us readers the full story. The historical setting this time is the relatively short span of 1862 until the end of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865. The main character here is the same Lieutenant Halsey Hutchinson referenced in the letter, a battle-wounded veteran now working in the telegraph office where Lincoln often visited and where he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. But poor Halsey falls into a series of predicaments beyond his control resulting in all sorts of misadventure. Chief among them is a lost diary of Lincoln’s (a “daybook”) that details his true thoughts and hesitancy to pursue emancipation.
Meanwhile Peter Fallon and his friends in the present day uncover the fact of a missing diary and of course recognize its historical value. The monetary value is so high that the hunt becomes extremely dangerous with more than one bad guy willing to kill for it.
I’ve always felt a sense of an emotional connection to the history described in a William Martin novel but this time it seems even more intense. Perhaps this is due to the subject matter, dealing with one of the most volatile periods in American history. I’ve read many books about the Civil War and about Lincoln but was nevertheless pulled into this one once again. This is not a book about the Civil War; there are few scenes of battles. But there are a couple scenes in and around battles, such as in field hospitals and we do get to experience actual historical characters such as Clara Barton and others that many readers may not have realized were there such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. But most of what is happening in the war at any given time in the novel is related through news coming in to the telegraph office, somebody reading a newspaper, casualty count notices, etc.
I could go on and on, but suffice to say, I am once again in awe of William Martin’s work and look forward to many more books to come.