Lincoln's Grave Robbers Book Review
- Sarah Ickes
- Mar 11
- 3 min read
According to an online seller, this book is marked for 5th to 8th graders. However, any adult will still find this storyline fascinating.
When I first found this book, I was looking through the shelves of a used bookstore for another title and stumbled upon this non-fiction book by accident. Now, I’m not going to lie. The book’s name and the front cover caught my attention at first glance. But it was the write-up on the back and my quick perusal through the pages that clinched the sale for me. And I am very glad I picked it up that day!
In the beginning, the book starts off with a criminal escaping from a train passing through Pennsylvania in the dead of night. The man, Pete McCartney, was in the process of being transported to the Old Capital Prison, and the author gives a well-researched history of this man’s ability to exit various jails by different means. One such account describes McCartney patiently waiting to collect enough of the tin foil found inside cigar boxes in order to melt them down and cast a key to unlock his cell in one of the jailhouses.
From there, Steve Sheinkin takes us on a journey of epic proportions as we meet up with Secret Service Patrick Tyrrell and his encounter with known counterfeit money engraver Ben Boyd. Back then, at the time when the Secret Service was established to secure our country’s economy, Tyrrell and his men where tasked with capturing the counterfeiters, also known as coney men, which placed James “Big Jim” Kennally in trouble with his clients. And it was actually due to his desperation of wanting to bust his best engraver out of jail that lead him to concoct the plan of stealing the former President’s body from his gravesite in Springfield, Illinois. But when the crew began looking for another man to include in their grave robbing scheme, an informant, also known as a roper at the time, Lewis C. Swegles quickly found himself digging a deeper hole than the Secret Service ever dreamed of unearthing.
Floating between facts from newspaper articles, photo imagery maintained in archives, and the daily reports filed by Patrick Tyrrell himself, Mr. Sheinkin does a wonderful job at keeping the reader intrigued from start to finish. The research is clearly evident throughout the storyline and the author keeps the novel moving as it progresses to the actual robbery and the trials that took place afterwards. There was much to learn about the way Secret Service Agents operated at that time period, and how “Honest Abe” still wasn’t allowed any peace in death for quite a long time.
Now…unfortunately…I will have to leave my review at that; out of fear of spoiling the story for all of you intrigued to find out more about the dastardly deeds carried out in 1876. Except to say one last thing, however…the more I read up on history, I have become increasingly surprised to find that many of our modern-day political issues are mainly mirrors of what came beforehand.
Want to buy your own copy of the above-mentioned book? Don't forget to check out your local bookshop, or you can visit Bookshop.org for all of your bookish needs. It is a great website where you can buy any genre book and a portion of the sale goes to whichever indie bookshop you choose.
Thanks for reading my review and see ya next time!
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