Welcome to Manhunt from the moderator

[wburns_kh]

How tough a challenge is it to make a story exciting even when everybody knows how it ends? Welcome to the discussion of James Swanson's Manhunt, beginning March 5. Manhunt is the compulsively readable narrative of the search for John Wilkes Booth, the murderer of Abraham Lincoln. I'm Bill Burns, the moderator of the discussion, and I look forward to hearing from all of you.

[aurora]

I'm only a fourth of the way through the book, and I'm enthralled with it. I've been interested in the Civil War since I was a child and my family toured some of the battlegrounds. My great-great-grandfather served with William Terrill and Don Carlos Buell, so I've been trying to do some genealogical research along those lines, too. Lincoln is such a fascinating president, I don't know how anyone could pass up this book. So far, I've found it very enlightening about a pivotal event in American history.

[Librarian]

Even though we know the outcome, I think this book becomes riveting because of the writing style and also because of the many fascinating details some of us never knew.
Librarian

[katknit]

Just started this book and am already hooked. It's fascinating to discover how Booth spent the day of the assassination before actually killing the president.

[katknit]

Hmmmm. Why do you think JWB took such a chance by using a single shot Derringer? For a man on a mission, that's tempting fate.

[aurora]

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katknit wrote:
Hmmmm. Why do you think JWB took such a chance by using a single shot Derringer? For a man on a mission, that's tempting fate.

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Hmmm.... Maybe he was so confident and obsessed, he was sure he could pull off his plan with a single shot making reloading unnecessary.

[wburns_kh]

Booth was clearly a man who liked drama for its own sake, and he might have planned only one shot for that reason.