Assassin of Shadows

April 1, 2019
Historian/novelist Goldstone (Unpunished Murder: Massacre at Colfax and the Quest for Justice, 2018, etc.) finds a surprising conspiracy beneath an unlikely presidential assassination. "I done my duty," announces anarchist Leon Czolgosz after shooting William McKinley twice in a reception line in Buffalo, New York. At first his satisfaction seems premature, since the president recovers sufficiently after the bullets are removed to eat solid food and ask for a cigar. Even before he dies eight days later, however, the game is afoot for Secret Service agents Walter George and his boss, Harry Swayne. Pulled away from their normal caseload of counterfeiting, the pair ask why the suspiciously bandaged Czolgosz was able to get so close to the president, why none of McKinley's bodyguards protected him, and who the two men were who visited both Czolgosz and librarian Esther Kolodkin, who sympathized with his cause, in the weeks leading up to the assassination. Some of these questions have much better answers than others, and the best indications that Walter and Harry are on the right track are that the people they're looking for start to turn up dead and the powers that be start to question their activities. Realizing they can't completely trust either new Secret Service chief John E. Wilkie or incoming President Theodore Roosevelt, whom the evidence increasingly implicates in a plot to kill his predecessor, the sleuths watch their steps with increasing apprehension as they interview a sweeping range of interested parties from Czolgosz's home in Cleveland to Chicago, where the spider's web seems to have its center, before confronting the head of a conspiracy as audacious and unexpected as it is logical. Goldstone deftly mixes fact and fiction to bring the turn of the century alive as his detecting pair unearth a breathtaking, satisfying conspiracy that may pique but won't outrage serious students of the period.

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Starred review from April 8, 2019
What if President McKinley’s assassination in 1901 was not just the work of a lone nut? That’s the premise of this outstanding thriller from Goldstone (The Anatomy of Deception). After anarchist Leon Czolgosz manages to get close enough to McKinley at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, N.Y., to shoot him, Secret Service agents Walter George and Harry Swayne are dispatched to that city to investigate. Their boss, John Wilkie, and power broker Mark Hanna are convinced there’s a conspiracy. But McKinley, who initially survives the shooting, insists that the agents not railroad anyone and pursue the truth, which could lead to Czolgosz’s political allies, who include Emma Goldman. The dogged George and Swayne begin to wonder if the attack was aided from the inside, given that the agents protecting McKinley weren’t suspicious of the assassin’s bandaged hand, which concealed his weapon. As McKinley’s condition worsens, George and Swayne come under surveillance—and under fire. Goldstone combines an intriguing theory of the crime with a jaw-dropping ending. This is his best novel yet. Agent: Michael Carlisle, InkWell Management.

May 1, 2019
Taking the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley in Buffalo as his starting point, Goldstone combines fact and fiction to weave a story of the plot behind the event. Heading the investigation are fictitious Chicago-based Secret Service agents Walter George and Harry Swayne, who soon discard the theory that McKinley was the victim of an anarchist plot, despite the fact that the actual assassin, Leon Czolgosz, is an avowed anarchist. Just after McKinley is shot, librarian Esther Kolodkin, who had recently moved from Chicago to Buffalo and met with Czolgosz, is found dead in a murder posed to look like a robbery; then the two men who likely killed her are shot themselves. Even though it appears that everyone involved in the assassination is marked to die, George and Swayne persevere. Goldstone works in a little romance for George, who is attracted to Esther's sister, Natasha, as Swayne persists in playing matchmaker between his colleague and Swayne's own sister, Lucille. A masterfully conceived, suspenseful "what if" story that will certainly draw fans of Max Allan Collins' similar series starring Nate Heller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)