Stolen Away

While all were useful, none of the books contemporary to the Lindbergh case proved entirely reliable: Jafsie Tells All! (1936), by Dr. John F. Condon, is predictably pompous and often at odds with Condon’s courtroom testimony; The Hand of Hauptmann (1937), by J. Vreeland Haring, is a biased account by one of the prosecution’s many handwriting experts, although one who never testified; The Great Lindbergh Hullabaloo (1932), by Laura Vitray, is an odd exercise in unintentional whimsy by a former Hearst reporter who apparently felt the kidnapping was a hoax; and The Lindbergh Crime (1935), by Sidney Whipple, is a United Press reporter’s pro-prosecution account. Whipple, though occasionally wildly inaccurate, does present the most detailed contemporary book-length account; and his later The Trial of Bruno Hauptmann (1937) presents a valuable edited version of the court transcript.

The latter-day nonfiction accounts are also a mixed bag; each has its merits, but each also has its limitations.

The most coherent, straightforward and readable narrative is the admirably researched The Lindbergh Case (1987) by Jim Fisher; unfortunately, ex-FBI agent Fisher is almost laughably pro-law enforcement, and in interviews has referred to the New Jersey State Police as mounting an “inspired” investigation. Also, Fisher tends to either omit any pro-Hauptmann evidence or relegate it to a footnote.

The most literate Lindbergh account is The Airman and the Carpenter (1985), by celebrated British crime historian Ludovic Kennedy; but Kennedy’s logical, convincing defense of Hauptmann has a rather narrow focus—John H. Curtis and Paul Wendel are barely mentioned, and Gaston Means and Evalyn McLean appear not at all.

The groundbreaking Scapegoat (1976) by New York Post reporter Anthony Scaduto was an especially important resource for this novel; but Scaduto concentrates on the Ellis Parker/Paul Wendel aspect of the case, with Curtis getting rather short shrift and Gaston Means (and Mrs. McLean) absent but for one brief mention. On the other hand, his coverage of Isidor Fisch is extensive and impressive. Scaduto jumps around considerably; readers looking for a nonfiction balance probably need to read Fisher and Kennedy and Scaduto.

The first major account of the case was George Waller’s bestseller Kidnap (1961), a readable if conventional and occasionally inaccurate pro-prosecution depiction. Annoyingly, the nearly 600-page nonfiction novel does not have an index.

An extremely important source was journalist Theon Wright’s In Search of the Lindbergh Baby (1981), which is the only one of these books that pulls in all the disparate elements of this convoluted case, and attempts to make sense of them. Like Scapegoat, however, Wright’s book is scattershot, and is best appreciated by readers already familiar with the basic facts.

My candidate for the best nonfiction look at the Lindbergh case is “Everybody Wanted in the Act,” a lengthy article by crime reporter Alan Hynd, published in True (March 1949); it has been reprinted several times in various anthologies, including Violence in the Night (1955) and A Treasury of True (1956). Hynd covered the case for True Detective Mysteries and was the coauthor of Evalyn Walsh McLean’s Liberty magazine serial, “Why I Am Still Investigating the Lindbergh Case” (1938). His cynical reporter’s-eye view—neither pro-prosecution nor pro-Hauptmann—is refreshing; he was also one of the first to voice doubt about the identity of the small corpse found in the woods of the Sourland Mountains. My account of the ghostly doings at Far View derives from this article, and from Hynd’s coauthored piece with Mrs. McLean.

The portrait of Evalyn Walsh McLean herein is drawn from the Liberty magazine serial mentioned above, and Mrs. McLean’s autobiography Father Struck It Rich (1936, cowritten with Boyden Sparkes). Also helpful was Blue Mystery: The Story of the Hope Diamond (1976), by Susanne Steinem Patch. The romance between Evalyn and Nate Heller is, of course, fictional, and I know of no parallel to it in Mrs. McLean’s life.

The portrait of Charles and Anne Lindbergh was drawn largely from their own writings: We (1927), The Spirit of St. Louis (1953), and Autobiography of Values (1977) by Charles; and Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead (1973) by Anne. Also beneficial were Lindbergh: A Biography (1976), Leonard Mosley; and The Last Hero: Charles A. Lindbergh (1968), Walter S. Ross.