Book cover of The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War

Book description

"It's history that reads like a race-against-the-clock thriller." ―Harlan Coben

Daniel Stashower, the two-time Edgar award–winning author of The Beautiful Cigar Girl, uncovers the riveting true story of the "Baltimore Plot," an audacious conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the Civil War in THE HOUR OF PERIL.

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Hour of Peril as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I find few dramas in history more intriguing than that of Abraham Lincoln, and it's sobering to realize just how close we came to missing his entire second act.

The so-called Baltimore Plot – a conspiracy to assassinate the newly elected president while en route to his first inauguration – has been written about before, but never as vividly and novelistically as in Daniel Stashower's The Hour of Peril. In telling this riveting story, Stashower brings into the spotlight a little-known figure named Kate Warne, perhaps the country's first female private detective.

Tough-minded and self-possessed beyond her years, Warne…

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A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

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