James Garfield sounds like an exceptional person. It's a shame that he was shot, and so early in his presidency. Think of what he might have been able to achieve otherwise.


The book was divided into two parts - an all too brief biography on Garfield up until the day he was shot, and the horrifying aftermath, with the substandard (even for that day) medical care that did nothing to save him and might even have caused his death.


Several people noticed a similarity with The Devil in the White City, with chapters bouncing between Garfield and Giteau, or Garfield and Alexander Graham Bell, who was desperately working to invent a device to find the bullet. Not that that would have helped Garfield, since it was the doctor-induced infection rather than the bullet that killed him.