Thursday, April 11, 2013

Trailer Thursday: The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln

Counterfactual: expressing what has not happened but could, would, or might under differing conditions. Some books imagine alternate histories, showing what the world would be like if the past was different. I really enjoy these books; maybe you do to.

The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln - Stephen L. Carter
Stephen L. Carter’s thrilling new novel takes as its starting point an alternate history: President Abraham Lincoln survives the assassination attempt at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865. Two years later he is charged with overstepping his constitutional authority, both during and after the Civil War, and faces an impeachment trial . . .

Twenty-one-year-old Abigail Canner is a young black woman with a degree from Oberlin, a letter of employment from the law firm that has undertaken Lincoln’s defense, and the iron-strong conviction, learned from her late mother, that society's limitations would never apply to her. And so Abigail embarks on a life that defies the norms of every stratum of Washington society: working side by side with a white clerk, meeting the great and powerful of the nation, including the president himself.  But when Lincoln’s lead counsel is found brutally murdered on the eve of the trial, Abigail is plunged into a treacherous web of intrigue and conspiracy reaching the highest levels of the divided government.



No comments: