Friday Memes: These Honored Dead by Jonathan Putnam

Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is now hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

My general store still bore the name A. Y. Ellis & Co., though Ellis had departed long ago. It was one of a dozen stores that stood around the perimeter of Springfield's central square and served its two thousand inhabitants.

Friday 56:

Before I could respond, the proprietor of another store on the square stopped by the table and asked Lincoln a few questions about a dispute he'd been having with a customer over a rotten barrel of beer.

This week I am reading These Honored Dead by Jonathan Putnam. I got this review book from Crooked Lane Books. Here is the description from Amazon:

Joshua Speed, the enterprising second son of a wealthy plantation owner, has struck off on his own. But before long, he makes a surprising and crucial new acquaintance--a freshly minted lawyer by the name of Abraham Lincoln.

When an orphaned girl from a neighboring town is found murdered and suspicion falls on her aunt, Speed makes it his mission to clear her good name. Of course, he'll need the legal expertise of his unusual new friend. Together, Lincoln and Speed fight to bring justice to their small town. But as more bodies are discovered and the investigation starts to come apart at the seams, there's one question on everyone's lips: does Lincoln have what it takes to crack his first murder case?

Inspired by actual events from the American frontier, Jonathan Putnam's thrilling debut These Honored Dead brings renewed verve and vigor to the historical mystery genre that readers haven't seen since Caleb Carr's The Alienist.