PositiveThe Washington Post\"Wels has exhaustively researched the assassination and all the factors leading up to it, especially Guiteau’s association with Oneida. Packed with colorful characters and well-chosen details, this book is an engrossing — if at times too wide-ranging — account of Victorian-era American eccentricity ... Wels knows how to paint a picture without being salacious or distasteful ... Wels has a knack for making connections between disparate facts and coincidences ...
At times, Wels seems too caught up in her own research ... An Assassin in Utopia may not stay focused on the story its title promises, but it does succeed in humanizing Garfield and the tragedy of his early death.\
