Mary Elizabeth Surratt - "Please Don't Let Me Fall!"
Published on 23. May 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
276 pages
978-1-393-66916-6 (ISBN)
Description
MARY ELIZABETH SURRATT
BOOK 5
THE LINCOLN ASSASSINATION SERIES
On a night meant for celebration, a single gunshot splits the air at Ford's Theatre-and Washington City clamps shut like a trap. By dawn, detectives pour into Mary Elizabeth Surratt's quiet H Street boardinghouse, turning parlor whispers into evidence and breakfast tables into witness stands. Was Mary the quiet hinge on which the plot turned-or the neatest neck to fit a noose?
From Washington's gaslit corridors-slick with soot, echoing with boot heels and the rattle of telegraph keys-to a plank-floored military courtroom ringed with bayonets, where verdicts are stamped out faster than mercy can form a prayer, this story tracks Mary's desperate struggle to keep her family from splintering while a raw, grieving nation demands a sacrifice. Neighbors avert their eyes. Friends forget the truth at the threshold and remember a different one under oath. Witnesses swear one version at dawn and another by dusk, their pockets heavy with promises and fear. Her daughter hammers on locked doors, shoves petitions beneath shutters, pleads with men who never remove their gloves. And over the prison yard the iron clock refuses to pity anyone; its hands scratch forward, each minute a footstep toward the scaffold. In that narrowing corridor of time, every breath is a wager-confess, defy, or let the rope speak for her.
Threaded with intercepted letters, sudden arrests, and testimony that shifts like sand, this novel moves from the shuddering heart of a city reeling from war to the echoing chamber where justice is hurried, soldiers keep the time, and mercy arrives too late. Whether Mary Surratt was monster or martyr, one fact cannot be argued: after Lincoln fell, someone had to hang. The question that haunts every page is why it had to be her-and who wanted it that way.
More details
Series
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
404 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-393-66916-6 (9781393669166)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Sidney St. James began writing his first novel, In the Face of Adversity in the spring of 1995. It was the beginning of four books in his Faith Chronicles Series following a family from Oldenburg, Germany traveling to Texas in 1845 and face many adversities along the way to establish a new life in a new country, TEXAS. His second in the series was The Rose of Brays Bayou, a true story written from the memoirs of Dilue Rose Harris of the Runaway Scrape in Texas. His third in the series is Faith - Seventy Times Seven, a true story about the first ordained woman minister in the State of Louisiana and how she found forgiveness for twenty years from an abusive and alcoholic husband. His fourth in the series, Seeing the Power of God, is a story about a young man who fell from the sky fully grown and has trouble finding Christianity when the only book he has ever read is one based on Hinduism. Thirty-six more novels follow his first series in Science Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Romance Suspense and Thrillers, and Religious genres.
He also loves to play matchmaker in his paranormal romances and young adult series, transporting readers to a place where the bold heroes have endearing flaws, the women are smarter than they lead on, the land is lush and untamed, and chivalry is alive and well.
He lives near Sun City in Georgetown, Texas with his wife Barbara and a cat named "Fluffy" and he can occasionally be found wearing a tie… and I do mean “occasionally.” His latest release “LET ME DRIVE” is his 38th novel.
You can connect with Sidney St. James on Facebook at facebook.com/authorsidneystjames or on Twitter @SidneyStJames3 or on Instagram at SidneySt.James. You can also visit his website, sidneystjames.com to sign up for emails about new releases and a chance to win signed copies of his latest releases. And, catch some cinematic video trailers of his former #1 selling Christian genre, FAITH - SEVENTY TIMES SEVEN.
James writes sweet, fun and action-packed detective mystery books with two super exciting detectives, Vincent Gideon, and Bridget Flynn. They both are smart and fearless.