Until recently, the most riveting and best researched account of Booth's murderous crime....was Manhunt, by James L. Swanson. But even stronger in terms of its exhaustive scholarship, dramatic and compelling language and insightful analysis of the politics, the social settings and the sights, sounds and even smells of the relevant locales is "They Have Killed Papa Dead!" - The Road to Ford's Theatre, Abraham Lincoln's Murder, and the Rage for Vengeance.

Author Anthony S. Pitch is a former broadcast editor for the Associated Press, and he brings a journalist's urgent rhythms and eye for small but revealing observations, along with the serious and extensively annotated scholarship of a great historian. (His earlier books include The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814). This winning combination is evidenced right in the title, which comes from the heartbreaking lament of Lincoln's young son Tad upon learning his father was shot. After nine years of work that included the unearthing of numerous new letters and first-hand eyewitness accounts, Pitch has given us if not the definitive story of the assassination and the events before and after, then the one that readers should turn to first." - Chicago Sun-Times