Book review: Age of Assassins, By Michael Newton

Pursuing the trajectory of assassination from tyrannicide, a title claimed by John Wilkes Booth after shooting Lincoln, to the "absurd quest for fame" of Warhol's attacker Valerie Solanas, Newton has produced a work as gripping as it is substantial.

He reveals the grace of victims – President McKinley saying, "Be easy with him, boys," as his assassin was caught, Bobby Kennedy asking, "Is everyone else all right?" – and the vicious punishment of perpetrators, however unhinged. "The nihilism of murder extinguishes identity," concludes Newton.