Then I’m not sure I understood the second part of:
Nearly 200 books have been written about the Lincoln assassination, including some by professional Lincoln scholars. So the odds seemed good that at least one of these was better than a book written by a TV talk show host.
But I was wrong. This was not a believable conclusion.
… I expected the following to show that you were wrong, and that the O’Reilly book was indeed better than those written by Lincoln scholars.
To me, it still reads like “I was wrong” means “I was wrong about thinking that at least one of these was a better book”. Perhaps you could get rid of the sentence “I was wrong” entirely, and say something like “To my surprise, it turned out that for many people, this was not a believable conclusion.”
Forgive my confusion, but did you conclude that Killing Lincoln was or was not the best book on the Lincoln Assassination?
No; I bought Blood on the Moon instead.
Then I’m not sure I understood the second part of:
… I expected the following to show that you were wrong, and that the O’Reilly book was indeed better than those written by Lincoln scholars.
Oh. I meant there were many people to whom it was not believable. I’ll clarify that.
To me, it still reads like “I was wrong” means “I was wrong about thinking that at least one of these was a better book”. Perhaps you could get rid of the sentence “I was wrong” entirely, and say something like “To my surprise, it turned out that for many people, this was not a believable conclusion.”
I also thought you meant that Bill O’Reilly had (surprisingly) written the best book ever on the Lincoln shooting when you said “But I was wrong.”
Presumably “but I was wrong” was meant to be ironic. But there is no way to know that. Maybe say “But I was wrong according to O’Reilly fanboyz”.
The “but I was wrong” part is still unclear (consider what it appears to refer to).