The Second Life of John Wilkes Booth is a gripping historical thriller based on the often-advanced theory that Lincoln's assassin was not killed in the barn in Virginia but escaped to a second life in the Wild West. Barnaby Conrad was told the plot in 1947 by Sinclair Lewis, while serving as personal secretary to the Nobel-Prize winning author. They agreed to co-author the book, but only one of them lived to tell the tale.

Conrad follows Booth as he secretly makes his way to Robert E. Lee's headquarters, expecting to be received as a hero. Instead Lee believes him an impostor and drives him away. The penniless Booth flees on a riverboat up the Missouri River to Montana Territory and assumes a new identity in a rough frontier town. Just as Booth falls in love with a kind woman, a bloodhound-like reporter appears, the truth is revealed and justice is delivered a la Greek tragedy.

About the author

Barnaby Conrad is the author of thirty books, including Matador, the best-selling novel of 1952, which sold over 3 million copie. John Steinbeck called it "The best book of the year." While serving as a diplomat in Spain from 1944-47, Conrad became an amateur bullfighter, known as "El Nino de California" and his next five books of non-fiction, including La Fiesta Brava, Gates of Fear and The Death of Manolete, were inspired by his experiences. In 1957 Conrad opened El Matador, a nightclub in San Francisco's North Beach that attracted celebrities as varied as Norman Mailer, Orson Welles, Marilyn Monroe, John Steinbeck, Noel Coward and Truman Capote. Over the years Conrad wrote many other books, such as his 1962 novel Dangerfield depicting his mentor Sinclair Lewis and his 2003 international thriller Last Boat to Cadiz. Ray Bradbury said of it: "I wish I had written this book! Ole!" Barnaby Conrad founded the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, which he and his wife Mary ran for 40 years.