Review: New twist on a twisted story
'Curse of Cain' is clever -- and contrived
By David R. Osier
CNN
(CNN) -- It is April 1865. Lee has surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. The Confederate government has fled Richmond. The Civil War is all but over, and all of Washington seems to have gone crazy in celebration. Even President Lincoln is in a jolly mood, attending the theater with his wife.
Then comes the moment that probably altered the course of American history: John Wilkes Booth, a well-known stage actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shoots Lincoln as he watches the play "Our American Cousin" from his box at Ford's Theater.
Or did he? That is the question J. Mark Powell and L.D. Meagher want you to consider in "The Curse of Cain." The title comes from a reference in Booth's diary.
Although it was clear within hours that Lincoln's killing was part of a conspiracy led by Booth, myriad theories abound even after 140 years, and the authors seem to have mined most of them.
For example: Was Booth's cabal part of an even larger conspiracy? Was the Confederate government behind it? Was it aided by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton? Was Vice President Andrew Johnson involved? What secrets did Booth reveal in the missing pages of his diary?
This is no alternative history, however. Booth still dies, shot by a soldier in a tobacco barn near Port Royal, Virginia, on April 26, 1865, 12 days after the assassination. Secretary of State William Seward still survives a stabbing. The person who was supposed to murder Johnson still does not even try.
The authors, who are writers for CNN Headline News, do not seek to change history; they just want to use it as a canvas to add a new twist.
Their story is a page-turner that's hard to put down, so much so that you almost forget the plot points that are beyond implausibility.
In other words, it's a kind of John Grisham meets the Civil War tale, a beach book ready-made for the movies.
Cardboard characters
The story's beginnings seem credible. In February 1865, as Grant's troops approach Richmond, Confederate military policeman Jack Tanner learns that a renegade rebel congressman has hired Basil Tarleton, a cold-blooded professional killer, to murder Abraham Lincoln.
President Jefferson Davis, afraid that such an act would undermine the Confederacy's cause for independence, orders Tanner to track down Tarleton to Washington and stop him any way he can.
From there, the story consists of Tanner chasing Tarleton, with the killer always one step ahead, committing dastardly deeds along the way.
So far so good. It's when they reach Washington that the contrivances become obvious.
First, we are asked to believe that the elegant and well-spoken Tarleton quite by happenstance meets Booth at a society party and falls in with him and his conspirators.
Then, the undercover Confederate intelligence agent Tanner seeks for assistance turns out to be a woman, Kate St. Claire, who moves easily in the city's social circles, so much so that she actually bumps into Tarleton and Booth together.
On top of that, we see that Kate and Tanner are meant for each other almost the moment they meet. But then what would a good thriller be without a juicy love affair?
The authors do keep us on edge by alternating the scenes from character to character, adding some misdirection occasionally. We really don't know what's going happen until it happens. Will Booth kill Lincoln, or will Tarleton get to him before Booth does? Will Kate and Tanner stop them both?
And they have done their homework on wartime Washington, referring for example to the new Capitol dome and the fetid, polluted Washington Canal.
Their dialogue, however, seems all too modern, and their characters are equivalent to what you would find in a Grisham novel -- which is to say not much is there to invest in emotionally.
That's not necessarily a knock. As with Grisham, the story here is more than important than character development. And, if "The Curse of Cain" becomes a movie, that can only be a good thing.
