We Is Got Him

June 13, 2011
Hagen's first book re-enacts with literary confidence and fine detail America's first documented kidnapping, in 1874 Philadelphia, of a four-year-old boy, Charley Ross, . The kidnappers, William Mosher and Joseph Douglas, demanded a ransom for his return. The case evoked a hysterical response from Philadelphia's political community (eager for visitors not to avoid the upcoming Centennial Exhibition) and involved incompetent police work, a double agent, and a press feeding frenzy. After the police first persuaded Charley's father not to pay the ransom, the mayor and city fathers wanted to fool the crooks, filling their ransom demand with marked bills. Newspaper descriptions of the kidnappers and a house-to-house search caused the two men who abducted the boy to come apart at the seams. They were eventually caught while committing a burglary on Long Island. Hagen's writing balances journalistic sincerity and dispassion with exciting precision.

June 1, 2011

The story of an 1874 kidnapping in Philadelphia that received sustained national attention.

In her first book, Philadelphia resident Hagen uses the backdrop of her city to re-create the uproar when at least two kidnappers snatched 4-year-old Charley Ross from his yard on July 1, 1874. The kidnappers issued ransom demands to Charley's father Christian, a dry-goods store owner, and Charley's mother Sarah. The author writes that before 1874, there had not been a recorded kidnapping for ransom in the United States. Without solid leads at first, police in Philadelphia and later in New York City (where a potentially knowledgeable informant resided) eventually identified likely suspects. The two leading suspects, career criminals William Mosher and Joseph Douglas, soon died in a shootout during a burglary unrelated to the kidnapping. During 1875, a former New York City police officer named William Westervelt received a prison sentence from a jury convinced he had served as an accomplice in the kidnapping. Westervelt was Mosher's brother in law, and he never stopped maintaining his innocence. Despite reward money of at least $25,000, nobody came forward with information reliable enough that it led to the return of Charley to his family. The kidnappers either killed the boy or left him somewhere under an assumed name, never to be reunited with his parents and his siblings. Hagen skillfully narrates a saga that transcends one kidnapping, a saga tied up with the World's Fair that was about to open in Philadelphia. City officials feared the negative publicity from the kidnapping would reduce attendance, and thus cost Philadelphia much-needed revenue. In addition, Hagen folds in historical perspective about inefficient and sometimes even corrupt police practices in Philadelphia, New York and other metropolises. New York City police superintendent George Walling serves as an especially sharp example of the author's accomplished character development.

A slice of American crime history both instructive and tragically entertaining.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2011
The 1874 abduction of a four-year-old boy in Philadelphia initiates this diligent reconstruction of the case. Placing the investigation within contexts such as preparations for the city's 1876 Centennial Exhibition, Hagen introduces significant characters including the boy's father and relatives, Philadelphia's panjandrums, police, and eventually, the kidnappers. Artfully concealing as long as possible the criminals' identities, Hagen blends into the narrative explanations for the tremendous publicity their transgression attracted. Kidnapping was such a rarity, she says, that, quite apart from any pity newspaper readers felt, it alone riveted themand then there were their hopes that the ransom notes (semiliterate ones, as in Hagen's title) would be published, which authorities declined to do. With competitive press speculation as background, Hagen's perspective takes in New York City's police commissioner, who nosed into the inquiry via a double-talking informant, and Philadelphia's mayor, anxious about crime deterring traffic to the coming big event. Resolution (crooks dead, informant jailed, boy never found) and all, Hagen's able debut should grab those who prefer historical to contemporary felonies.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)