Lincoln's Ransom is a work of fiction based on the actual attempt to steal President Abraham Lincoln's body.

James "Big Jim" Kinealy had a gang of counterfeiters: Stan Mullins, Rip Hughes and Jack McGuinn. In June 1876, the gang decided to steal Lincoln's corpse from his mausoleum in Springfield and hold it until the government released their best engraver, Ben Boyd, from prison. The gang knew that the theft of the beloved president's remains was going to infuriate the American public and cause them to retire to more hospitable places. This group of half-wits manage to bumble their way through an ill-planned, problem-filled crime with a federal agent in tow. Their adventures will put you in tears. It is one of the most outrageous stories ever written!

Once the group decided to steal Lincoln's corpse, somebody got a bit drunk and blabbed the plan to a whore. She reported the confession to the Lincoln Memorial Association. They thought the plan to too impossible to worry about, but the news soon hit the newspaper. The government sent Secret Service Agent Sterling Packard to infiltrate the gang, posing as a professional graverobber. He easily gained the confidence of the gang because he had met Kinealy during the war.

The plan went into play on Nov. 7. Packard had six men waiting for his signal, only 60 feet from the mausoleum, but the gang had trouble getting into the graveyard. Then, they found the marble top of the sarcophagus pegged down. When they got the pegs broken and started to move the lid, it fell and broke their lantern. Kinealy lit a match to light the room but he lit the room, literally, when the match burned his finger and he dropped it into the puddle of kerosene.

They broke the end out of the sarcophagus and slid out the coffin. It had a lead liner and weighed a ton. They could not remove the liner because it had no handles. They were stuck with the weight.

Packard planned to signal the agents when he went to get the wagon. But McGuinn was spooked about being around a corpse and decided to accompany Packard to get the wagon. He never got a chance to give the signal. As the graverobbers were riding away, they heard the agents shooting at each other around the mausoleum.

This is just the beginning of the adventure. The 278 pages of this book will keep you quite entertained. You will find yourself hoping these "bad guys" manage to pull off their crime and get away from the madhouse they have created. This alternate history is a wonderful book that always keeps me laughing when I read it.