The Ghosts of Hopewell is Jim Fisher's reply to the junky misinformation-based theories presented by several Lindbergh kidnapping books published in recent years. In order to fully appreciate this book, the reader should probably have read his earlier book, The Lindbergh Case.

Jim Fisher is, without doubt, the world's authority on the Lindbergh kidnapping. He has a solid background in both law and law enforcement so he understands how both police investigations and criminal trials proceed. He researched both books exhaustively at the Lindbergh Case Archives in New Jersey, viewing all the evidence in the case and voluminous records from both the investigation and the trial.

If you want to know what REALLY HAPPENED to the Lindbergh baby and who REALLY committed the crime, read Fisher, forget all the other poorly researched, tinfoil-hat, conspiracy-pushing books. They are mostly rubbish. Fisher's works on the subject form THE authoritative source. Both books by Fisher are terrific! I own them both and re-read them every so often. He really makes the case, the participants, and the time period come alive!

Here's the real story, the only story worth reading. Fisher is thoughtful, careful, and factual is his enlightening account of the true and complete story behind the famous Lindbergh kidnapping and the subsequent "Trial of the Century." Every aspect of revisionist history is addressed with intelligence and evidence (and sometimes a touch of wit). Hauptmann's guilt is proven within these pages, leaving no room for doubt and fulfilling the title's promise to close the book on these events. GHOSTS OF HOPEWELL is a book worth opening, a book worth reading, a book worth buying, and most certainly a book worth recommending.

I have spent the last 10 years researching and writing my biography of Anne Lindbergh, and Jim Fisher's work has been indispensable to me. In a field of crackpot theories and self-serving, half-baked conclusions, Jim Fisher remains a disciplined, educated, objective eye to the people and the events, the crime and the investigation that has stumped scholars for nearly seventy years. A former FBI agent who has devoted 25 years of his life to solid scholarship, Jim Fisher and his book deserve to be honored. Anyone serious about exploring the facts and theories of this fascinating subject should not miss Fisher's new book.

Lindbergh certainly was the superstar of his day. Following his singlehanded flight from New York to Paris in May 1927, the public rapturously hung on his every word. In this memoir, written only days after the event and subtitled "the Famous Flier's Own Story of His Life and His Transatlantic Flight, Together With His Views on the Future of Aviation," the "Lone Eagle" tells about his childhood, how he acquired his first plane, his career as a stunt flier, his training in the Army Air Corps, and his work as an Air Mail pilot (including his four emergency parachute jumps). Then, in great detail, he describes the preparations for his epic flight, the flight itself, and the wild welcome that met him in Europe. The "spiritual meaning" of his flight also gets a lot of coverage.

Maybe it's just the cynicism of the latter part of the 20th century, but all the modesty seems somehow self-serving. The timing of this book makes it important to anyone interested in Lindbergh, but his later "The Spirit of St. Louis" is a far better book.

Someone once said that nobody told his own story better than Lindbergh himself. When one considers the continuous flow of books written about him, this is an opinion to be seriously considered.

Thoughts naturally leap to his Pulitzer prize-winning The Spirit of St. Louis, which still has lavish praise heaped upon it by even Lindbergh's most recent biographers. Published in 1952, more than 15 years after Lindbergh's historic transatlantic nonstop flight from New York to Paris, its intriguing flow is heightened by what is known in the world of English grammar as the historical present indicative tense, a seldom-used approach by writers because it is said to be so difficult to sustain, particularly over the long haul of an entire book's length. In short, the author describes what is happening at a particular moment, but zig-zags flashback style out of the present while the author recalls moments in his history past.

Stay alert, Reader, for anyone writing in this manner must perform near-perfect writing artistry to maintain interest. Of course, The Spirit of St. Louis falls into that elegant category.

All but vanished into the shelves of juvenile literature in some libraries - or the collections of those who treasure its merits (or collect Lindberghiana) - is the long-forgotten Lindbergh memoir simply entitled "We."

Here comes the inevitable momentary comparison with The Spirit of St. Louis, which Lindbergh worked on for close to 13 years and sent to numerous critics and friends for review during the long writing process. This is not a criticism of Lindbergh, for he was a perfectionist; the book he then produced was worth its wait in spades.

But "We" is the one and only fresh-from-the-flight retelling of our newly crowned hero's lifetime adventures. Rushed to publication just three weeks later, making it the converse of its younger brother, this is precisely where the book's real value counts.

Consider the times: it was 1927 - those topsy-turvey twenties. Much as we know that they were famous for the Charleston, fashion, fun, and freedom, despite what Mom thought, they were dark times, nonetheless, for many veterans returning from World War I found their jobs had vanished. It was not long before sound waves coming from Europe were troubling. And - there was no hero in the White House, for Coolidge neither aroused enthusiasm nor had any sense that he should try. However, technology was being harnessed to an untold degree. Radio, telephone and Henry Ford's Model T were opening up linkages across America in unprecedented fashion. Aviation was being heralded as a form of communication where, unimaginably, it might even become possible to carry passengers from one destination to another.

Lindbergh's feat was not only a large miracle, but placed in his times, there comes the realization that he also had the benefit of a press and pubic longing to break the rules, see the world, and hoist a hero into history. His natural good looks and demeanor only added to the package; he was irresistible!

Written in straightforwaard, unvarnished prose, in "We," Lindbergh not only takes the reader into the fledgling wings of aviation, but recalls his early life, progressing from boyhood through planehood and on into herohood. How could anyone not be caught up in this real-life hero-in-the-making myth? Here we have simple language telling of a golden dream. Plainly told in boy next store sentences, the book is more than a dress rehearsal for the prize winner which succeeded it.

Beginning with the conventional, "I was born in... . My father was... .", of Lindbergh's still pristine memories, he wrote: "On several more occasions it was necessary to fly by instrument for short periods; then the fog broke into patches. These patches took on forms of every description. Numerous shorelines appeared, with trees perfectly outlined against the horizon. In fact, the mirages were so natural that, had I not been in the mid-Atlantic and known that no land existed along my route, I would have taken them to be actual islands."

Could anyone else have written this you-are-there recounting, told as only a young Lindbergh - not a seasoned, even embattled Lindbergh, could tell it? "We" is a near-instant, first person replay which history would be a little number without, and without which, THIS Lindbergh could not have been known.

And that almost happened, except our hero wouldn't allow it. Originally assigned to ghostwriter Carlyle MacDonald's pen by G. P. Putnam, Lindbergh was aghast to see what he considered either mistakes or misinterpretations in MacDonald's version. No one but he would write his book - which had been promised for publication in a matter of weeks. The hapless MacDonald did make one major contribution, for it was he who named "We" "We," having noted Lindbergh's overt use of the "first person plural" when referring to his plane and himself. One of the few rounds Lindbergh ever lost, "We" stuck! Perhaps it would not have mattered an iota aabout the title; it sold a riotous 190,000 copies in just two months and earned its author more than a hundred thousand dollars in the first six months, quite an achievement for that time or any other.

"We" still graces library shelves, albeit, you may have to look in the young readers' section. Or maybe, now that you are aware of it, you might try mentioning it to Aunt Isabel, because she just may have a copy sitting on her own oak library shelf!

For years I've wanted to read this book! I finely got to do it. Have the movie "Spirit of St. Louis" but the book puts you right in with the pilot. He flew this "mission" by the seat of his pants, and this was true flying. A must read!

Having read several books regarding Lindgergh and the kidnapping of his baby, I found this to be the least plausible. His conclusion isn't well supported and seems to be making the pieces fit. Also, he introduces so many outside characters that you forget what or who you're reading about! It makes the idea of "six degrees of separation" into more like twenty. There are other "Crime of the Century" books out there that are better researched and supported.

Anyone who has studied the tousled hair and body language of Charles Lindbergh alongside that of John F. Kennedy will see some similarities, right down to the way they stuck their hands in the pockets of their suitcoats. The hero image of Lucky Lindy and that of the commander of PT-109. Here, Noel Behn makes a well-documented hypothesis that there was a cover-up in the Lindberg kidnapping case. His access to the archives of then New Jersey governor Hoffman, who was discredited by a corruption scandal at the moment he was raising doubts about Hauptmann's guilt (some have gone so far to say he was close to Fritzl Kuhn's "German-American Bund"), adds an additonal modicum of credibility to Behn's offering. When one reads Behn and then looks at what news icon Peter Jennings presented last year in his retrospective on the Lindberg case, Jennings becomes the moral equivalent of Dan Rather getting caught posing as a Mujaheddin rebel on his own news show. Behn suggests that there may have been no kidnapping at all and that Anne Morrow Lindberg's sister is the card in this game of Clue. The motive for the murder, jealousy. The motive for the cover up, the reputation of a young hero, the future of aviation, and the reputation of America's most powerful banking institution. Enter Col. Norman Schwarzkopf, the rigid, commander of the New Jersey State Police and father of our Desert Storm hero "Stormin (but not to Baghdad) Norman". Add Republican lawyer/dealmaker "Wild Bill" Donovan (who would become head of the OSS during World War II) to the mix. And the zealous prosecutor David Wilentz, who had lines open to organized crime and its legit businesses as some say the law firm that bears his name continues to have today. There was no "Grassy Knoll" here. But there was "the cemetery". Best for one to get the details oneself. What sets this work apart from others is that it dares to think outside the box on one of the great "crimes of the century". When examining the film footage of the trial, how dissimilar are the tirades of Wilentz against Hauptmann from those of Nazi Volksrichter Freissler against Colonel Von Stauffenberg, who placed the bomb under Hitler's desk in the Wolfschanze? The older sister of Anne Morrow Lindberg was spirited off to the United Kingdom, Behn tells us. There was the marraige of the sister to a British academic type, ensuing mental problems and an early death under strange circumstances. Considering that coming up with new revelations about the Lindberg "kidnapping" is about as difficult as obtaining the latest revelations about the progress of making public the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Behn's work (including his hypothesis)has established the foundation upon which a yonger generation of journalists and investigative reporters can build.

I found this book to be extremely interesting. Noel Behn did an excellent job keeping my attention. He was able to present an amazing amount of detail while still making it easy to follow.

This is a fascinating and interesting book, full of hiddenfacts that force the reader to become involved in the book. Togetherwe share his triumphs and tragedies: we are with him when he flies theAtlantic, we are there when he loses his son. A must read for all those who have fantasised of being a hero.

Bruno Richard Hauptmann was the kidnapper and murderer of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. No speculative or fictionalized evidence by Anthony Scaduto or anyone else can change that unalterable fact.

I would give this book zero stars except that Amazon won't let me. What a waste of paper.

this was a good book. i'd like to get that out before hand. i think that in real life, the actual event was more mysterious and intriging. while i'm not rating a movie, i think that an event that captured an entire nation's attention and sombody accused of killing "the eaglet" that everybody hated, could have used a better book. i would suggest reading about the "Lindbergh Kidnapping" before you read this book, so you don't get lost.