142. The Fatal Bullet

The Fatal Bullet: The Assassination of President James A. Garfield by Rick Geary

Pages: unnumbered
Finished: Aug. 16, 2008
First Published: 1999
Genre: true crime, graphic novel, American history
Rating: 3/5

Reason for Reading: next in the series and this library book is due back tomorrow.

First sentence:

The President's mortal remains lay in state for two days in the great rotunda of the Capitol...

Comments: I have to say I wasn't too thrilled with this one before I even started it. An assassination doesn't seem like the same thing as murder to me, there's no detecting for a start. I had also never heard of this American president before (I'm Canadian) so I at least looked forward to learning something new.

The book follows the lives of both James A. Garfield and Charles J. Guiteau (the assassin) from childhood to death. Garfield is presented as a good president loved by the people and Guiteau is shown as a man who slowly lost his sense of reason and sanity and eventually plotted the death of Garfield to save the country. I found it quite interesting that a few people involved were at the assassinations of both Garfield and Lincoln.

As always with this series the artwork is tremendous. Very detailed black and white line drawings that use light and darkness to purvey the feelings of hope and gloom. This is my least favourite of the series so far simply because the story told was not in line with the murder theme of the previous volumes.