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Lincoln is a popular topic these days with sometimes fanciful results in fiction and movies. This book has a solid historian behind the fantasy. The prosecutor of the Booth conspirators told on his deathbed of a dangerous secret concerning Lincoln’s assassination, but he took the secret to his grave and the provenance of this tale was “by no means sturdy.” The story being too juicy to ignore, Stewart turned to fiction.

Flirtations of the most dangerous and serious sort entangle Frances Stuart first in the court of Louis XIV and then in the Restoration court of Charles II. Despite the luscious gowns and extravagant jewels she wins for herself, we don’t envy her the high-wire balancing act she must maintain as she tries to win first one king’s influence and then another, while concealing the tragic secrets that would destroy her family and herself.

“Webb holds up a light into the inner recesses of a fascinating and contradictory woman . . . Becoming Josephine is an accomplished debut.” Read my review of Heather’s excellent novel about Josephine, Empress of France, Napoléon Bonaparte’s wife on the New York Journal of Books.

Another page-turning, alternately funny and bone-chilling mystery from Julie Kramer. A delivery of an envelope of human teeth gets Riley going on another lethal investigation.

Teatime for the Firefly creates a vivid portrayal of the exotic world of the Assam tea plantations and Indian life during both WWII and the momentous upheavals immediately following the war. It excites the palate with its depth and fullness.