An Acquaintance with Darkness

Book excerpt: A teenage orphan is caught up in President Lincoln’s assassination—and another macabre plot—in this “fast-paced and dramatic” historical novel (Publishers Weekly). Emily’s mother always told her that she should avoid Uncle Valentine, a doctor, that he was involved in things she shouldn’t know about. But after Emily is orphaned—as Washington, DC, is in chaos due to the end of the Civil War—she has nowhere else to go. Now, in addition to coping with the loss of her mother, the fourteen-year-old finds herself involved in two mysteries. First, she wonders about her best friend, Annie Surratt, and the Surratt family. Annie has a signed picture of the handsome actor John Wilkes Booth in her room—but there seems to be more of a connection between Booth and the Surratt family than Emily thought…possibly including the plot to kill Lincoln. At the same time, Uncle Valentine’s odd behavior leads Emily to suspect that he is involved with body-snatching. As dark secrets swirl around her, Emily must figure out who she can trust, in this suspenseful tale “with a wealth of interesting background information” (Publishers Weekly). “Rinaldi has woven two interesting plots here into a fine coming-of-age historical novel....Makes readers feel as if they are living in history.”—Booklist “A vivid account of the moral ambiguities surrounding body snatching—for medical research—at the close of the Civil War.”—Publishers Weekly