By Candice Millard

Charles Guiteau, President James Garfield, Chester A. Arthur, and Alexander Graham Bell are the antagonist, protagonist, and inventing genius at the heart of this book. Guiteau was mentally unwell, and shot the President for not giving him a job in his administration. But it was the doctors that end up killing him. Bell is frantically trying to create a machine to find the bullet lodged in the President’s body. Arthur is the Vice President, a compromise appointment, and from the other wing of the Republican party. Will Arthur live up to the ideal of himself that Garfield sees in him?

Death by Lightening was based on this book. The Bell subplot is largely reduced in the show. But the book has tension throughout it – the political tensions in the Republican Party, the tension as Guiteau gives into his delusions of being owed for the election, the tension of Arthur’s internal struggle, and the tension between the doctors and scientists as they disagree about germ theory and how to treat their patient. Very good book.

339 Pages

4.25/5