William A Thau

Anarchists of the Gilded Age William A Thau

Their lives collided on a Chicago-bound train, each running from a death sentence. Matthew Stanton, a wealthy industrialist, has been framed for the murder of President William McKinley. Alyssa Harding is escaping from a psychopathic husband who wants to kill her. It is the end of the Gilded Age and the beginning of Ragtime. The year is 1901. Americans are captivated by amazing scientific achievements that will change their lives forever: electricity, the telephone, flying machines, automobiles, and x-rays. And America is under the grips of the enormously wealthy barons of Wall Street.



America is also suffering through its darkest days. It is plunged into the madness and savagery of men who would destroy its freedom and democracy - the anarchists. Three American presidents have been assassinated in the short span of thirty years. Theodore Roosevelt is now president, and the anarchists are at work plotting his death.



Matthew Stanton is a man with a fatal past. He has been taught to kill, and to save the president and Alyssa Harding, he must kill again. Stanton is thrust into an unfamiliar terrain where the darkness of the human soul breeds anarchists. In his deadly encounter, he becomes the unsuspecting target of Thaddeus Pratt, a deranged Wall Street tycoon so unscrupulous and devoid of ethics and character that he ranks with the worst criminals of the times. Pratt is possessed with such a frightening degree of malevolence that nothing will divert him from his murderous intent.



In their frantic struggle to stay alive and save the president, Matthew Stanton and Alyssa Harding are thrust into a web of vicious deceptions, deadly confrontations and murder.