Critical praise for Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer
“[A]s gripping a page-turner as anything you’ll find on the mystery shelf…[Swanson] makes the characters in this great American tragedy actually seem human. Even Booth comes across as viscerally real…(Grade: A)” Entertainment Weekly

“[Mr. Swanson] has successfully streamlined the assassination’s aftermath into an action-adventure version of these events. He makes Manhunt very accessible and infuses it with high drama.” Janet Maslin, The New York Times

 “Artfully arranging Booth’s flight with the frantic federal dragnet that sought him, Swanson so tensely dramatizes the chase, capture, and killing of Booth that serious shelf-life…awaits his account of the assassination.” Booklist: January 1 & 15, 2006. Page 36

 “[E]xtraordinary…This is a story as gripping as any tightly scripted crime drama, yet Swanson doesn’t play fast and loose with historical facts.” Boston Globe

“The narrative’s most interesting character – Lincoln himself – is gone after the first act…On balance, thought, Manhunt is a rattling good read. And it’s a surprisingly suspenseful one.” USA Today

 “Mr. Swanson’s moment-by-moment account of the 12-day chase is compulsively readable…Swanson reminds us that history is ultimately governed not by impersonal economic and social forces but by all the emotions that make up individual human beings…” Wall Street Journal

“Swanson’s precise, minute-by-minute account is surprisingly suspenseful…With scrupulous research as the bedrock to an enthralling story, Manhunt will appeal to casual readers of popular history, as well as academic historians,” Charlotte Observer: March 5, 2006