{"id":2165,"date":"2022-06-16T20:36:39","date_gmt":"2022-06-16T20:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2165"},"modified":"2023-04-02T23:00:32","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T23:00:32","slug":"the-lindbergh-nanny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2165","title":{"rendered":"The Lindbergh Nanny"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most of us are familiar with the kidnapping of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh\u2019s baby, Charlie, in 1932, which was known as \u201cthe crime of the century.\u201d So what can a fictionalized version of the events offer readers today? A whole lot more, it turns out. Fredericks has Betty Gow, the baby\u2019s nanny, narrate this tale, which begins with Betty\u2019s arrival in Detroit from Scotland\u2014in pursuit of love gone wrong\u2014and ends several years later with her permanent return to Glasgow. Kudos to Fredericks for creating in Gow such a hugely compelling character: smart, introspective, full of humor, a loving nanny. She\u2019s also a terrific social observer, watchful of class distinctions, and all too aware of the inequality of the sexes. The first third or so of the book builds towards the abduction of Charlie\u2014it\u2019s incredibly nerve racking\u2014while the middle third is centered on the messy aftermath of the crime: the frenzied press, the myriad ransom notes, the continual interrogations by detectives. In the final third, the narrative builds again as Betty returns from Scotland to testify in the trial of Bruno Hauptmann, who was eventually convicted and electrocuted, and the courtroom drama that unfolds is nothing less than brilliant. As fans of the Jane Prescott mysteries can testify, Fredericks is especially adept at historical settings, and this book doesn\u2019t disappoint. <strong><em>The Lindbergh Nanny<\/em> can cross-over in all kinds of directions, and should appeal to readers of crime fiction, historical fiction, women\u2019s fiction and those just needing a solid read.<\/strong> Librarians: watch the holds list on this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most of us are familiar with the kidnapping of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh\u2019s baby, Charlie, in 1932, which was known as \u201cthe crime of the century.\u201d So what can&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[149,54,55,164],"class_list":["post-2165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-biographical","tag-historical","tag-mystery-detective","tag-star"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Lindbergh-400x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Lindbergh-400x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Brian Kenney","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}