President Franklin Roosevelt died of natural causes during the second week of a vacation in Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 12, 1945. Jim Sargent's latest novel stops before April 12, instead focusing on the first week of the vacation during which various aspiring assassins, unknown to each other but with a common goal, have turned up in Warm Springs for one last belch of evil that would have robbed the President of his natural death and further traumatized a war-weary nation. 

A savvy novelist-investigator trusted by Roosevelt, Mickey Matthews and his capable friend, Frank Tuttle, join the assemblage of folks riding to Warm Springs on the train that is pulling the President's bulletproof railcar dubbed the Ferdinand Magellan. The action starts on the ride down and continues for several days as Mickey and Frank assist the President's regular bodyguards in contending with false identities, cleverly disguised assassins, a damsel in need of rescue, more than one wicked woman, shootouts, and brushes with death. The evocation of the hot Southern town with its colorful cast of locals is pitch-perfect, and the detailed description of the train ride to Warm Springs and later the one back north captures the special aura of mid-century rail travel. 

This is not alternate history nor does it contradict the historical record. After all, thwarted assassination attempts don't necessarily become headlines. Jim Sargent knows the history well and he carefully places his imagined events in the unfilled chinks. We see FDR himself in several memorable scenes, and Dr. Sargent, a longtime Roosevelt scholar, perfectly captures the serenity and greatness of this unique President.

Although not a first-person narrative, the writing hews closely to Mickey's viewpoint. On the last page Frank wonders if Mickey will write about their Warm Springs adventure, which becomes a playful invitation for the reader to entertain the idea that the book in hand has somehow sprung from the pen of the protagonist himself. This highlights the fact that the novel has indeed been crafted to read like one that could have been written in the 1940s, an artifact from the same era as the story it tells. In its optimism about the triumph of good over evil, its vocabulary, dialogue, and style, the writing has been clipped of any modern day anachronisms as well as angst that would spoil the illusion that the story was composed by a forties writer, maybe even Mickey himself. You can gallop through the 400 pages without paying attention to this aspect of the writing, but if you take the time to savor the voice and style it will add to the pleasure you get from the novel.

David Hillman, Roanoke, Virginia, September 17, 2020