Beneath the Winter Sycamores

I purchased this book out of curiousity more than anything. Having read it though I'm not sure what to make of this book.The author claims the book is based on the account from a NJ prisoner who served time with Bruno Hauptmann and who then passed a 3 page note to a prison guard upon his release whereafter the "confession" sat for 50+ years. This in and of itself is a little hard to swallow. I suppose this could have happened but I find it improbable and other than repeating the story, this book offers no hard proof that this actually is what happened.The book itself is written along the lines of a docu-drama. The crux of the story is a variation on the "inside job" thories of the kidnapping. Only this time Lindbergh himself led the kidnapping effort and was the ring leader of a kidnap gang that included John Condon, Isidor Fisch, Haputmann and several of the household staff including Violet Sharpe. Lindbergh's motivation was the supposed backwardness of his child and Lindbergh's flirtation with eugenics and his desire/need to have a perfect/worthy child. It is a gross understatement to say Lindbergh had "issues". Clearly he was not the fair haired hero portrayed at the time and he did have numerous odious flirtations with ideas such as eugenics, nazism and with peoplke such as Alex Carrell but to extrapolate from that that this led him to stage the kidnapping of his own son seems to me to stretch logic to the breaking point.The author makes alot (and I mean alot) of leaps in the narrative. There are whole sections that appear to be fictionalized. There are certainly parts of the narrative that Hauptmann clearly could not have known much less included in his "confession". And since the author does not provide any footnotes or backup evidence we can only assume he made up large chunks of the story (i.e. Lindbergh's sadistic treatment of his son -- it is not inconceivable that Lindbergh was a sadistic SOB but again no evidence or supporting documentation of this is provided). There also is little or no proof provided that Lindbergh actually met Condon, Fisch and Hauptman prior to the kidnapping plot. No evidence other than it was in the note is offered to substaniate his points.On the surface the narrative appears to answer alot of questions surrounding the kidnapping so from that perspective I would not label the book "trash" as another reader has but I would be reluctant to call this a fact based account. There is a feel to the book that a scenario was made up recently to 'fill in the gaps' of the case. I'm not saying it couldn't have happened but no support is provided to support the author's contention that the kidnapping was carried out the way and for the reasons described.On the whole I found the book to be an interesting and to aa certain extent thought provoking read. However, it in no way measures up to Kennedy's or Scaduto's defense of Hauptmann.

I give this book (I suppose one could loosely call it a book) one star, if only for the fact that it had, somewhere in the core of it, an engaging hypothesis (I'd give it half a star, but Amazon doesn't ration out half-stars.)The published material purports to be an account by the son of a prison guard, elucidating more thoroughly a plot exposed in a letter supposedly written in prison by Bruno Hauptmann, detailing an alternate suspect for and a vast conspiracy behind the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping. Sounds like an excellent and exciting premise, yes?Here's the problem. I spent good money on what I thought would be a BOOK (whether pure fantasy, or a purported 'based on true events' nonfiction novel); you know, something edited, proofed, published under some kind of industry standard. There was no disclaimer that this was a self-published, Amazon-special sort of effort that would compete with "Weekly World News" for quality. Mr. Jim Bahm, dear God, you are not the greatest thing ever to pick up a pen, and your prose stinks. Please, for the sake of your readers' eyes and brains, have someone beta-read your fan-fiction first before you publish it, pay to get it bound, and sell it to people who will mistakenly think you are capable of following the rules and conventions of the written English word.Between the cloying turns of phrase that were entirely out of place, the painfully convoluted excuses for sentences, the disordered wreck of through-line, and the utterly unbelievable, clearly invented MASSES of inane dialogue the author could not possibly know to have occurred, the entire thing is a terrible mess of poorly-rendered flight of fancy. I got about one page in and pulled out a marker to proof. After five pages, I made a color-coded key in the front cover for my proofing, and fetched a few extra markers. At page sixty-something, I quit. I wasn't strong enough to bull through the thousandth incapacity to type "Lindbergh" (why on this good earth Bahm decided he needed to use the phrase, "the Great Aviator" in every other line in lieu of Lindbergh's name was inexplicable; the repeated use of the above phrase bordered on abuse).In other hands, this book would be a fascinating, edge-of-your-seat read; an expose, a can't-look-away, up-all-night thriller. I can almost taste the book that might have been...but in the hands which actually delivered this ferociously awful effort, I can recommend this literary waste to exactly no one. If you want a great, keep-you-up page-turner about the Lindbergh Kidnapping, please read "Master Detective: The Live and Crimes of Ellis Parker, America's Real-Life Sherlock Holmes". Now THAT? is a CRACKER of a book.http://www.amazon.com/Master-Detective-Americas-Real-Life-Sherlock/dp/0806527501/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451341761&sr=1-4&keywords=master+detective

A retelling of the Lindburgh baby kidnapping from a wholly different perspective. Author Jim Bahm weaves an intriguing, behind-the-scenes tale that couldn't be shared with the popular culture of the 1930's while the country was steeped in the Great Depression and looked to their Aviator Hero as an American standard.This cerebral narrative is based on a 3-page typewritten letter the author's father received while working at Trenton's NJ State Prison as a young guard in 1950. The scriber of the letter shared prison time with convicted German carpenter Richard Hauptmann before his execution for this headline-making crime. Before his death, Hauptmann communicated details of a far larger and more manacing conspiracy, the details of which unfold in Beneath the Winter Sycamores.If you enjoy programs like Law & Order: Criminal Intent, this story's for you.The contents, research and credibility of the narrative make up for a manuscript that could benefit from professional editing. With history and shifting loyalties now decades behind us, I'd take the book to a screenwriter. It's got the makings of a highly explosive, made-for-TV movie.

This is a very accurate account of the the Lindbergh kidnapping. I have met the author and he shared the letter with me that was the basis of writing this book. I think that if the Lindbergh kidnapping had happened in the 21st Century there would have been a lot more answers. DNA would probably have verified exactly what happened. The fact that Charles Lindbergh had his son's body cremated, in my mind, makes it look as if he was trying to cover up something.