Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Mariah Fredericks' emotionally charged and propulsive new novel, The Lindbergh Nanny, examines one of the most famous kidnapping cases in America from the lens of one of America's favorite suspects, putting Betty Gow at the center of her own story for the first time.
Betty Gow is known by another name: the Lindbergh Nanny. When toddler Charles Lindbergh Jr. is kidnapped from his parents' weekend home in Hopewell, New Jersey in 1932, his parents are frantic, his grandmother devastated, and the media rabid. Betty, amid the maelstrom and named a suspect herself, is determined to find out who has taken him.
Charles Lindbergh was already famous for his flight across the Atlantic--the golden boy of America, with his wealthy and lovely wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, beside him--when Betty joined the household to look after little Charlie. A Scottish immigrant deciphering the rules of her new homeland and its East Coast elite, Betty finds Col. Lindbergh eccentric and often odd, Mrs. Lindbergh kind yet nervous, and Charlie simply a darling. Far from home and bruised from a love affair gone horribly wrong, Betty finds comfort in caring for the child, and warms to the attentions of handsome sailor Henrik, sometimes known as Red.
But when Charlie is taken from the family home, at a time when no one but a handful of Lindbergh servants could have known he was there, everything changes. A suspect in the eyes of both the media and public herself, Betty must find the truth in order to clear her own name--and to find justice for the child she loves.
Synopsis
Mariah Fredericks's The Lindbergh Nanny is powerful, propulsive novel about America's most notorious kidnapping through the eyes of the woman who found herself at the heart of this deadly crime.
A masterful blending of fact and fiction that is as compelling as it is entertaining.--Nelson DeMille
When the most famous toddler in America, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., is kidnapped from his family home in New Jersey in 1932, the case makes international headlines. Already celebrated for his flight across the Atlantic, his father, Charles, Sr., is the country's golden boy, with his wealthy, lovely wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, by his side. But there's someone else in their household--Betty Gow, a formerly obscure young woman, now known around the world by another name: the Lindbergh Nanny.
A Scottish immigrant deciphering the rules of her new homeland and its East Coast elite, Betty finds Colonel Lindbergh eccentric and often odd, Mrs. Lindbergh kind yet nervous, and Charlie simply a darling. Far from home and bruised from a love affair gone horribly wrong, Betty finds comfort in caring for the child, and warms to the attentions of handsome sailor Henrik, sometimes known as Red. Then, Charlie disappears.
Suddenly a suspect in the eyes of both the media and the public, Betty must find the truth about what really happened that night, in order to clear her own name--and to find justice for the child she loves.
Gripping and elegant, The Lindbergh Nanny brings readers into the interior of the twentieth century's most infamous crime.--Nina de Gramont, New York Times bestselling author of The Christie Affair