Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer combines elements of traditional narrative historical writing and true crime. Like most traditional historical narratives, it relies heavily on documented evidence including letters, media reports, personal journals, and academic studies. These sources are documented at length in the Bibliography and Notes that follow the narrative text. As James Swanson, the author, describes in the opening “Note to the Reader,” “All the characters are real and were alive during the great manhunt of April 1865. Their words are authentic. Indeed, all text appearing within quotation marks comes from original sources…” (xiii). This is what one would expect from a non-fiction historical narrative. However, the note is necessary because much of the narrative is written in the mode of a crime thriller.

Swanson relies on poetic language to illustrate the events and in some cases speculates about the emotions and state of mind of the figures in the story. This gives the historical events immediacy and creates suspense. For example, while Booth is hiding out in a pine thicket with his loyal compatriot David Herold, Swanson writes, “No doubt [Booth] reassured Herold about the very things he most needed to convince himself—they would cross the Potomac, they would find succor in Virginia, they would survive” (207).