The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln — Stephen L. Carter

From the author of the best sellers The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, an electrifying, provocative new novel that asks the question: What would have happened had Lincoln not been assassinated?

Stephen 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--only to be charged with overstepping his Constitutional authority during the Civil War, and faced with impeachment. Abigail, a young black woman recently graduated from Oberlin, is hired by a D.C. law firm to assist in Lincoln's defense. Working with a white clerk named Jonathan, and ducking the admonitions of her formidable Nanny Pork, Abigail embarks on a life that defies the norms of Washington society. But when one of Lincoln's lead lawyers is found brutally murdered, she finds herself plunged into a web of intrigue, politics, and conspiracy more tangled than she could have imagined. Here is a sweeping drama that captures the emotional tenor of post-Civil War America, that explores the nature of presidential authority (a particularly resonant subject for our own moment in history), and that gives us a galvanizing story of political suspense.