William Swanson

It’s true crime month for my mystery book club. I was excited about this one seeing as it’s a Minnesota based crime and I’m from and still in Minnesota!

Virginia Piper was a loved woman, very active in her community and profession, and raised a strong family of boys. But one day while she was gardening two masked men came looking for her husband, who at the time was not home. Instead of abducting him, they decided to abduct her! With a $1 million ransom, her husband pays, and she’s returned home without a scratch….and here we are 51 years later and the abductors and the cash have never been found!

The book had an interesting beginning. The storyline of the abduction, paying the ransom, and the FBI involvement was interesting. I also liked the pictures.

The author uses really long run on sentences. And the last 100 pages of the book were a snooze, it was obvious he was stretching to get the word count higher. I think he mentioned the effects the kidnapping must’ve had on Piper like 200 times.

★★★ Would recommend if it was a little shorter of a book, but the drag at the end is not worth it.… (meer)

Stolen from the Garden by William Swanson is a very highly recommended account of the 1972 kidnapping of Virginia Piper and the subsequent investigation and trials.

In 1972 when 49 year old Virginia (Ginny) Piper was kidnapped by two masked men from her home by lake Minnetonka in the Minneapolis suburb of Orono, Minnesota, her husband, Harry (Billy) Piper Jr., paid a $1 million ransom for her safe return. After receiving the ransom, the kidnappers left information that Ginny could be found blindfolded, handcuffed and chained to a tree in a forested state park area outside of Duluth. Swanson recounts all of the details of the kidnapping, the search for suspects and the resulting two trials that failed to result in a conviction.

This is a fascinating book. Swanson explores and presents the information in a straightforward, concise format. Between the FBI files and information from the surviving sons, and with a clear eye for details, he presents the final, but inconclusive results of the investigations. Stolen from the Garden is a riveting account of a real life cold case and is very highly recommended.


Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society Press for review purposes.

… (meer)