Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall ($14).Our 2006 Modern Firsts Pick gets a rave from Audrey Niffenegger of an earlier MFC Pick The Time Traveler's Wife ($14): "…riddled with typographic games, codes, a flip book, and a boatload of very elegant plot devices that hinge on collisions between the Information Age and the imagination. At one point Eric and Scout, his guide/love interest, are speeding away from the conceptual shark on a motorbike. Scout eludes the shark by exploding a letter bomb, a bomb made out of old metal type; the type diverts the shark into a stream of random letterforms. At this I practically fell off the couch with admiration. There's plenty to groove on even if you're not a type maven. There's echoes of Cyberpunk, Borges, Auster; there is adventure on the high seas, lost love, an exploration of what it means to be human in the age of intelligent machines. … huge fun, and I gleefully recommend it." Nicely said, Audrey, and from a type maven like you, a real compliment.
Assassin's Accomplice by Kate Clifford Larson (Basic $26).
Mary Surratt, a little-known participant 
in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, was the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government. A Confederate sympathizer, she ran the boarding house in Washington where the conspirators--including her rebel son, John Surratt—met. Based on long-lost interviews, confessions, and court testimony, the text explores how Mary's actions defied nineteenth-century norms of femininity, piety, and motherhood, leaving her vulnerable to deadly punishment historically reserved for men.
To read another unusual treatment – in a novel – of the conspirators, you can't do better than Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon novel Flasback ($7.99) set today at the Dry Tortugas National Park where Dr. Mudd was imprisoned.
in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, was the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government. A Confederate sympathizer, she ran the boarding house in Washington where the conspirators--including her rebel son, John Surratt—met. Based on long-lost interviews, confessions, and court testimony, the text explores how Mary's actions defied nineteenth-century norms of femininity, piety, and motherhood, leaving her vulnerable to deadly punishment historically reserved for men.To read another unusual treatment – in a novel – of the conspirators, you can't do better than Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon novel Flasback ($7.99) set today at the Dry Tortugas National Park where Dr. Mudd was imprisoned.
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