The Gilded Age of Assassins, A Novel of Suspense

They met as strangers on a train, each running from a death sentence. Matthew Stanton has been framed for the assassination of President William McKinley; Alyssa Harding is escaping a deranged husband who wants to kill her. The year is 1901. It is the end of the Gilded Age and the beginning of Ragtime. Americans are spellbound by amazing scientific achievements that will change their lives forever - electricity, the telephone, flying machines, automobiles, x-rays, and the enormous wealth of the Wall Street barons; and they are besieged by anarchists.

Three American presidents have been assassinated in the short span of thirty-five years, two at the hands of insane anarchists. Theodore Roosevelt is now President, and the anarchists are already at work plotting his death.

Mathew Stanton is a man with a fatal past. He has been taught to kill, and to save Alyssa Harding and the President, he must kill again. The subject of a nationwide manhunt, Stanton is thrust into a deadly encounter with anarchists and becomes the unsuspecting target of Thaddeus Pratt, a deranged Wall Street tycoon so unscrupulous and devoid of ethics and character that he ranks with the worst criminals of the times. Pratt is possessed with such a frightening degree of malevolence that no amount of violence will divert him from his murderous intent.

In their frantic struggle to stay alive, Stanton and Alyssa weave through a web of vicious deceptions, deadly confrontations and murder. Their journey propels them into horrors they could scarcely have imagined, and their lives become so intertwined that ultimately they must live or die as one.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

KIRKUS REVIEW

Thau’s novel is a rip-roaring historical thriller set in Theodore Roosevelt’s America.

It’s the first decade of the last century. Theodore Roosevelt has just become president in the wake of William McKinley’s assassination at the hands of a disgruntled Pole, Leon Czolgosz, and Roosevelt has big plans; he wants to build the nation’s Navy, project American power abroad and re-establish the United States as a major player on the world stage. But there are those who plot his demise—anarchists who think the national interests Roosevelt promotes are little more than a pretext for exploiting the working poor. With the future of the country hanging in the balance, an unlikely pair race across the landscape, fleeing for their lives. Matthew Stanton—disguised as a priest—runs from those who would pin the last president’s death on him. And Alyssa Harding, née Coolidge, strives to escape the clutches of her sadistic husband, whom she married, it seems, only to fulfill her mother’s dying wish. As their lives collide on a Chicago-bound train, both are thrust into an unlikely struggle against anarchists, police officers, politicians and unhinged Wall Street barons. However, the greatest strength of Thau’s tale is not its fantastical excess, but its absolute plausibility. His historical fiction holds up to scrutiny, and he gives his story the look and feel of turn-of-the-century America. Similarly, his protagonists are eccentric but believable.

The gorgeous Alyssa is no mere distressed damsel, and the mysterious Matthew is a clever update on that old stock figure, the man-with-a-past. Both these two, and a supporting cast of dozens, come to life with the help of Thau’s vibrant but thoroughly economical prose. He uses his words more carefully than early 20th-century stock speculators spent their money, and his novel reaps the profits.

A gripping, literate page-turner.

They met as strangers on a train, each running from a death sentence. Matthew Stanton has been framed for the assassination of President William McKinley; Alyssa Harding is escaping a deranged husband who wants to kill her. The year is 1901. It is the end of the Gilded Age and the beginning of Ragtime. Americans are spellbound by amazing scientific achievements that will change their lives forever - electricity, the telephone, flying machines, automobiles, x-rays, and the enormous wealth of the Wall Street barons; and they are besieged by anarchists.

Three American presidents have been assassinated in the short span of thirty-five years, two at the hands of insane anarchists. Theodore Roosevelt is now President, and the anarchists are already at work plotting his death.

Mathew Stanton is a man with a fatal past. He has been taught to kill, and to save Alyssa Harding and the President, he must kill again. The subject of a nationwide manhunt, Stanton is thrust into a deadly encounter with anarchists and becomes the unsuspecting target of Thaddeus Pratt, a deranged Wall Street tycoon so unscrupulous and devoid of ethics and character that he ranks with the worst criminals of the times. Pratt is possessed with such a frightening degree of malevolence that no amount of violence will divert him from his murderous intent.

In their frantic struggle to stay alive, Stanton and Alyssa weave through a web of vicious deceptions, deadly confrontations and murder. Their journey propels them into horrors they could scarcely have imagined, and their lives become so intertwined that ultimately they must live or die as one.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

KIRKUS REVIEW

Thau’s novel is a rip-roaring historical thriller set in Theodore Roosevelt’s America.

It’s the first decade of the last century. Theodore Roosevelt has just become president in the wake of William McKinley’s assassination at the hands of a disgruntled Pole, Leon Czolgosz, and Roosevelt has big plans; he wants to build the nation’s Navy, project American power abroad and re-establish the United States as a major player on the world stage. But there are those who plot his demise—anarchists who think the national interests Roosevelt promotes are little more than a pretext for exploiting the working poor. With the future of the country hanging in the balance, an unlikely pair race across the landscape, fleeing for their lives. Matthew Stanton—disguised as a priest—runs from those who would pin the last president’s death on him. And Alyssa Harding, née Coolidge, strives to escape the clutches of her sadistic husband, whom she married, it seems, only to fulfill her mother’s dying wish. As their lives collide on a Chicago-bound train, both are thrust into an unlikely struggle against anarchists, police officers, politicians and unhinged Wall Street barons. However, the greatest strength of Thau’s tale is not its fantastical excess, but its absolute plausibility. His historical fiction holds up to scrutiny, and he gives his story the look and feel of turn-of-the-century America. Similarly, his protagonists are eccentric but believable.

The gorgeous Alyssa is no mere distressed damsel, and the mysterious Matthew is a clever update on that old stock figure, the man-with-a-past. Both these two, and a supporting cast of dozens, come to life with the help of Thau’s vibrant but thoroughly economical prose. He uses his words more carefully than early 20th-century stock speculators spent their money, and his novel reaps the profits.

A gripping, literate page-turner.