"A treasury of primary material about cases of witchcraft in East Lothian. This marvellous, vast compendium of transcribed documentation, with useful annotation and perceptive commentary, is a most welcome contribution to the study of Scottish witchcraft in the 16th and 17th centuries. Seasoned academic scholars of witchcraft will find much useful, challenging material - and read of witches and witchcraft cases that they have never come across before. Even with some familiarity with the cases that the author presents, it is fascinating to read different accounts given by different witnesses of the same case and the same alleged incidents. In addition to the annotated transcriptions there is a summary of James VI and I's short treatise on witchcraft, in the form of a dialogue, called: Daemonologie. And a long, closing chapter on the analysis and interpretation of witchcraft in East Lothian. I might not agree with every single claim that David Robertson makes - but I can heartily endorse the general tenor and commendable balance of his judgement. He says: 'We must avoid the "all or nothing" attitude, where either everything is true or everything is a farrago of ludicrous nonsense. We can accept what is probable, dismiss what is clearly impossible, but we should keep an open mind on the admittedly vast area in between'. That is an appropriate attitude with which to approach this remarkable and very fine book." -- from the Introduction by Hugh V. McLachlan

A gripping historical novel in the bestselling tradition of "The Alienist" and "Time and Again, Booth" brings vividly to life a figure who continues to haunt the American imagination--John Wilkes Booth. The story begins as an elderly John Surratt, the only conspirator to escape a hanging sentence for the murder of Abraham Lincoln, is asked by film director D.W. Griffith to recount the harrowing events of his youth during the screenings of Griffith's film Birth of a Nation. The request prompts Surratt to reread his detailed diaries, begun in 1864 when he was first befriended by John Wilkes Booth and was unwittingly enmeshed in Booth's plot to assassinate the President.
Told through a series of flashbacks, the novel both chronicles the young, naive Surratt's tragic coming of age as he belatedly realizes the nature of the plot Booth has sucked him into, and illuminates the motivations, larger-than-life appetites, and appeal of the charismatic and world-famous stage actor. As Surratt delves further into the diaries and transcripts, it is clear the young Surratt has become trapped in Booth's web of seduction and betrayal. Further insight into the assassination plot is revealed in a surprising twist when the genuine diary that Booth left behind, explaining his actions and implicating others around him, falls into Surratt's hands (a Booth diary, with several missing pages, does exist and is on public display at the Ford Theater in Washington).
Compulsively readable, and filled with brilliant period detail--as well as a dozen reproductions of actual photographs of the conspirators and their execution, "Booth" is a powerful evocation of a dangerous, chaotic, and tragic time in our history, a story that continues to resonate to this day.