*Starred Review* Some of President Lincoln's associates and some historians have questioned if the supposed conspiracy to assassinate him upon his arrival in Baltimore was serious. Stashower has no doubt that the plot was real, and he has written a convincing and well-researched chronicle of it and the successful effort to thwart it. His story has the necessary elements of a successful historical thriller, including a determined assassin; a wily, intrepid detective; a serpentine plot; and, in Lincoln, an important and sympathetic potential victim. Stashower seems determined to lay out the painstaking details of the plot; although it provides credibility, it sometimes acts as a drag on the narrative. Still, the stakes are high, so the story has a built-in urgency and excitement. The detective, the soon-to-be-famous Allan Pinkerton, is a relentless and clever sleuth, and the chief conspirator, a Baltimore barber named Ferrandini, is a formidable adversary. Despite some slow moments, the book generally succeeds as both a historical inquiry and a detective story.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist

ABRAHAM LINCOLN has been dead for nearly a century and a half, but we still seem fixated on what happened to him - or what might have happened to him, as we read in Daniel Stashower's swift and detailed rendering of the first credible effort to end the life of the 16th president of the United States. This account of the little-known Baltimore-based plot to assassinate Lincoln before his March 4, 1861, inaugural hurtles across a landscape of conspirators, heroes and politicos in hotel suites, ladies' parlors and railway depots along Lincoln's train route from Springfield, Ill., to Washington. We know the plotters did not succeed, of course, but the documents Stashower has unearthed give the strong indication that they might have made good on their intentions all too easily. The real hero of "The Hour of Peril" is Allan Pinkerton, a Scottish immigrant and barrel-maker, whose drive for success married a quicksilver intellect to advance the nascent profession of private detective. (According to one theory, the term "private eye" comes from the image of an open eye on Pinkerton's National Detective Agency logo.) During the months between Lincoln's election and the inauguration, Baltimore was the red-hot center of secessionist conspiracies. Early on, Pinkerton - who had been hired by the concerned president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad - sniffed assassination plots in the wind blowing from there; the city was situated in the volatile border state of Maryland, which would not secede from the Union, and John Wilkes Booth made his acting debut on the Baltimore stage. Maryland was rife with hysterical personalities and opportunities for elaborate, shifting and improbable alliances. Pinkerton and his operatives identified an elegant, mustachioed Corsican immigrant barber named Cypriano Ferrandini as the hub of a network of Lincoln haters. Into the den of this crew of potential cutthroats, Pinkerton dispatched his most trusted confidential agents, including Mrs. Kate Warne, a young widow who was the first female professional detective in America; she was hired by the wily Pinkerton, and it turned out to be one of the best management decisions he would ever make. Warne carried the most sensitive communications from Pinkerton to Lincoln's inner circle in those final critical days in New York City, when Lincoln had to be diverted from his planned stop in Baltimore. Pinkerton's personal history and rise to national prominence dominate the book at first, but Stashower's narrative generates a healthy head of steam. The story begins to build toward the happy avoidance of the cataclysm that would have befallen Lincoln and the nation in the unhappy precincts of Baltimore during late February 1861, had Pinkerton not managed to persuade the president-elect and his closest aides to follow a last-minute plan of evasion. Since Lincoln has long since been deified on screen - portrayed by Walter Huston, Henry Fonda and most recently Daniel Day-Lewis - it can be difficult to recall how controversial a figure he once was. In his time, however, Lincoln was reviled - in the most vituperative language imaginable - as much as, or perhaps even more than, he was revered. The Republic and the Constitution rose again, phoenixlike, from the conflagration of civil war, but President Lincoln did not - Booth made certain of that. We can be grateful, though, that Old Abe survived the first attempt on his life. And now we have the chance to relish the story of the clever and determined characters who were dedicated to his safety and to the cause for which, on April 15, 1865, he would ultimately surrender his life. Greg Tobin, most recently the author of "The Good Pope," a biography of John XXIII, is writing a novel.

John Wilkes Booth succeeded in 1865, but the first major plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln unfolded in 1861 in anticipation of the then president-elect's railway trip to Washington, D.C., for his inauguration. Stashower (The Beautiful Cigar Girl) explains how Allan Pinkerton, a temperamental Scottish cooper turned "fierce and incorruptible lawman" and founder of the Pinkerton Agency, sought to infiltrate and obfuscate a murderous group led by Cypriano Ferrandini, an outspoken Italian barber in Baltimore. Interwoven with the tale of Pinkerton and company's efforts to foil what would become known as the Baltimore Plot, Stashower offers a rich portrait of a resolute but weary Lincoln as he makes his way, both politically and physically, to the White House. As everyone knows, he arrived without incident, but while he saved his skin, he lost some respect for stealing into the capital "like a thief in the night," as one newspaper put it. The book starts out slow, but once Stashower lets the Pinkerton operatives loose, their race against time as Lincoln's train speeds toward Maryland makes for an enthralling page-turner that is sure to please true crime, thriller, and history fans. Photos. (Feb.). (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

The first known attempt to murder Abraham Lincoln occurred in February 1861 during his railway journey from Springfield, IL, to Washington, DC, for his inauguration. Stashower (The Beautiful Cigar Girl) details how Allan Pinkerton, head of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, managed to stop a band of rebels bent on killing the president-elect in Baltimore. Stashower describes a campaign-weary, nonchalant, and somewhat incautious Abraham Lincoln, traveling east toward the presidency. The author records him arriving safely in DC after stealing through Maryland's darkened countryside and Baltimore's precincts as "a thief in the night"-at Pinkerton's behest, but in the process forfeiting a measure of political stature to his detractors, who questioned his courage and fitness for office. The tale builds methodically before shifting into dramatic mode as Pinkerton, in fewer than two weeks, uncovers and quashes the would-be assassins' designs, assisted by agent Kate Warne, the leader of Pinkerton's female undercover unit. VERDICT Stashower's character-driven narrative and lively writing style reveal the finely honed skills of an accomplished mystery writer. Recommended.-John Carver Edwards, Univ. of Georgia Libs., Cleveland (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.