This book had such great potential. Initially I was drawn in by the premise. Who wouldn't want to learn more about an assassination attempt foiled by the original private eye. It's the premise and skeleton of the actual story that kept me from giving this book a two star rating. Here are some of the downsides: The narrator of the audiobook is rather lackluster. The author opens with a description of Lincoln's immediate journey to the inauguration, clearly well after the foiled assassination attempt in Baltimore. This ends up confusing the reader. The author spends far too much time on intricate details of Pinkerton's cases. While these are fascinating, I fail to see the relevance to the principal topic. Additionally, the author (aided by the narrator's inflection) waxes eloquent in his descriptions making the narrative sound pretentious. In the end, this fascinating topic is given a far too thorough treatment. The story could have been told in much fewer words.