Murder at the Capitol

November 15, 2019
July 4, 1861, finds the U.S. teetering on the brink of the First Battle of Bull Run, an engagement many think will end the Civil War quickly. Washington is bursting with Northern troops waiting to fight. But the longer nothing happens, the more trouble they cause in a sleepy town woefully unprepared to feed and house them. Aspiring reporter Sophie Gates is on her way to attend a session of Congress when she runs into Constance Lemagne, a Southern belle she'd met while helping presidential aide Adam Quinn solve several murders. Adam's a frontiersman and old friend of President Abraham Lincoln's, who's given him the power to investigate all sorts of problems (Murder in the Oval Library, 2018, etc.). When Sophie and Constance find a man hanging from a crane in the Rotunda, they know just whom to call. Adam, an expert tracker, can tell by the footprints at the scene that the man was murdered and calls upon his friend George Hilton, a black man constantly in danger despite his status as a physician, to help prove it. The dead man, Pinebar Tufts, worked at the Patent Office. His wife, who claims that he had no enemies, admits that he recently had more money and hinted at plans for a better future. When Constance's father is gravely injured in a carriage accident and the doctor caring for him wants to amputate his leg, a desperate Constance goes to Hilton for help, arriving just in time to save him from thugs who have already beaten him badly. Sophie doesn't trust Constance, who fiercely believes in the Southern way of life, but still befriends her, along with Felicity Monroe, a stunning young society woman whose upcoming nuptials are the talk of the town. The next to die is the night watchman at the Capitol. Soon after, Sophie discovers a dangerous secret involving Felicity, and Constance undertakes a spy mission for the Rebels. Adam may have his hands full, but plucky Sophie is always there to help as their romantic feelings blossom. A clever mystery whose historical setting painstakingly dramatizes the many evils of slavery.

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Starred review from December 9, 2019
At the start of Gleason’s superior third Lincoln’s White House mystery (after 2018’s Murder in the Oval Library), set in July 1861, Southern sympathizer Pinebar Tufts, an assistant examiner in the Patent Office’s civil engineering division, enters the partially completed Capitol, where an assailant hits him on the head. The next day, Tufts’s body is discovered hanging from a crane beneath the building’s half-finished dome. The grim find is reported to series lead Adam Quinn, a frontiersman who has become a member of Abraham Lincoln’s security team. African-American physician George Hilton, a friend of Quinn’s, examines the corpse and confirms Quinn’s suspicions of foul play. A complicated murder inquiry ensues. Quinn must probe Tufts’s killing at a particularly fraught time, as Washington, D.C., residents anxiously await the “big battle” that they hope will settle the Civil War in the Union’s favor. Gleason effectively integrates historical subplots, including a Southern spy ring, into the main story line. Owen Parry fans will be pleased. Agent: Maura Kye-Casella, Don Congdon Assoc.

Starred review from January 1, 2020

As Congress gets ready to reconvene after the Independence Day celebrations in 1861, Piney Tuft's body is found hanging from a crane in the Capitol rotunda. Wannabe journalist Sophie Gates insists they inform Adam Quinn, a one-armed frontiersman, who is part of President Lincoln's security team. Now he is the president's murder investigator. With the help of Dr. George Hilton, a black freedman, Adam deduces that Tuft's death was not suicide. By the time a second body is discovered near the Capitol, Adam is deep into the case, and Sophie is contending with a prominent socialite whose father is being blackmailed and wants Sophie to find the blackmailer and save her upcoming wedding. VERDICT Gleason follows Murder in the Oval Library with a riveting historical mystery set on the eve of the first major battle of the Civil War. Fans of descriptive historical mysteries will appreciate the mix of real people and intriguing fictional characters.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

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