Forgotten Books: THE MURDER OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN by Rick Geary (2005)

Back in the day, I was an avid reader of underground comics: Mr. Natural, Zap, Slow Death, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, et al. So I’m naturally predisposed to like Rick Geary’s The Murder of Abraham Lincoln, which I can best describe as an underground history book.

My words will be brief on this one, because no amount of telling can convey what this one is really like. I’ll provide a few sample pages so you can see for yourself. I will say, though, that Geary takes us back in time like no history book can. He does a great job of introducing us to John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators, and to Lincoln and the people around him. He lays out the events leading up to the assassination, the killing itself, and the aftermath in dramatic fashion, and raises intriguing questions about many mysteries yet unanswered. There was a LOT of stuff here I didn’t know.

And if you like this one as much as I did, you’ll want to check out Rick Geary’s other picto-histories, which include one on Jack the Ripper, one about the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, and one about Lizzie Borden. My thanks to Mr. David Laurence Wilson for turning me on to his work.