Viking Penguin has generously added Beau Riffenburgh's new book, Pinkerton's Great Detective: The Amazing Life and Times of James McParland to my TBR shelves and has offered a giveaway to one interested reader of my blog. The book hits bookstores November 18th, and I will begin reading shortly after that. One lucky winner will get a copy about the time I begin reading, so we can read it together, have a dual post, AND have a Q & A with the author if the winner is interested.
With the holiday season approaching, we all find our planned reading languishes while we spend time with family and friends and catch up on the year. But we must have some interesting reading to talk about when the group gets together, and this book sounds like it will fit the bill. Below is the jacket and marketing material from Viking. I'll have more news on this title when I read it later in November. This looks like a great "Dad" title, or for the undercover provocateur in your family. Perhaps you'd like to discover the secrets of trailing someone undetected? After all, if Pinkerton inspired Conan Doyle, I'm sure there is something in here for all of us mystery lovers. Sign up below!
"Beau Riffenburgh digs deep into the recently released Pinkerton National Detective Agency archives to compile the first biography of James McParland, the legendary Pinkerton detective who took down the Molly Maguires and the Wild Bunch.
In October of 1873, Allen Pinkerton, the head of the legendary detective agency that carried his name, picked a hitherto unknown, twenty-nine-year-old agent named James McParland to infiltrate the Molly Maguires, a mysterious and brutal Irish-American brotherhood responsible for sabotage and at least sixteen assassinations in the Pennsylvania coalfields. Dressed as a tramp and posing as a counterfeiter and fugitive from a murder charge, McParland set out for Pennsylvania, knowing he faced certain death if members of the brotherhood found out he was a Pinkerton’s agent. For almost two years, McParland worked undercover, eventually being drawn into their inner circle before bringing them to justice in a series of nine trials. That was only the beginning…
PINKERTON’S GREAT DETECTIVE brings readers along on McParland’s most challenging cases: from young McParland’s infiltration of the Molly Maguires to his hunt for the notorious Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch to his controversial investigation of the Western Federation of Mines in the assassination of Idaho’s former governor—a case that he took on at the request of President Theodore Roosevelt. So thrilling were McParland’s cases that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle invented a meeting between him and Sherlock Holmes; he was referred to by those seeking his services, by newspapers around the country reporting his cases, and even by criminals as “The Great Detective”. Filled with outlaws and criminals, detectives and lawmen, PINKERTON’S GREAT DETECTIVE shines a light upon the celebrated secretive agency and its premier sleuth.
Beau Riffenburgh has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge, where he was a member of the academic staff for fifteen years. He has written numerous books on exploration, including Shackleton’s Forgotten Expedition. He lives in Llanarthne, Wales, UK."
I have a winner for the giveaway! Many thanks everybody!
You can buy this book here:
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Awesome! This looks like a great addition to libraries of us Continental Op fans, too.
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