First Daughter
President Grover Cleveland is two years into his second, famously non-consecutive term. He’s put the scandal that dogged his first election—an illegitimate child, allegedly born to a mistress in Buffalo—behind him. Now in 1895, he’s on vacation in Cape Cod with his young and very pregnant wife Frances and their daughters Ruth and Esther. On the day Frances gives birth to a third daughter, three-year-old Esther goes missing. There is a ransom note demanding a very specific sum, the meaning of which escapes the Secret Service agents assigned to protect the first family. Is the kidnapper a political enemy, a greedy opportunist, or something more?
The author has chosen an unexplored nook of history, and one without a lot to go on. No such kidnapping attempt was ever reported, despite a number of threats against the Clevelands. Ms. Wasserman fills in the gaps as best as one can, with personal details about Grover and Frances that are at times repetitive—1895 must have been a slow news summer, with the work of the Presidency limited to agonizing over political appointments and the occasional appeal for clemency. Otherwise, Mr. Cleveland spends most of his time fishing and playing with his mustache. The lack of an actual crime and the author’s unwillingness to stray far from the historical record leaves the book with insufficient stakes to propel the action forward, until the very end when Frances herself finally steers the book off the historical rails on a dramatic chase to confront the kidnapper.
