The Miss Stone Affair: America's First Modern Hostage Crisis
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On September 3, 1901, a Protestant missionary named Ellen Stone set out on horseback across the mountainous hinterlands of Balkan Macedonia and was ambushed by a band of armed revolutionaries.In The Miss Stone Affair, Teresa Carpenter re-creates an event that captured the attention of the world and posed a dilemma for incoming president Theodore Roosevelt. Should he send in the Navy or not? And, if so, send it where? Drawing upon a wealth of contemporary correspondence and documents, Carpenter constructs a narrative that is suspenseful, harrowing, and at times even comical. It is a story for our time. The New York Times Carpenter is earnest and meticulous, and one senses beneath her sobriety an urge to let herself go and fully indulge in the human drama. There is the occasional breathy passage, but for the most part, like her heroine, she maintains an impressively stiff upper lip. This leaves the impression of two books in one: a worthy account of politics and diplomacy, with a more emotional tale beneath it, itching to break free. — Ben Macintyre
PrefaceixChapter 1Miss Ellen Stone1Chapter 2Alert19Chapter 3The Captives36Chapter 4Diplomacy43Chapter 5Thread and Soap65Chapter 6Summer Dresses78Chapter 7The Commission84Chapter 8The Revolutionists103Chapter 9The Baby128Chapter 10The Gold144Chapter 11The Chase165Chapter 12Persona Non Grata187Afterword209Notes on Sources213Bibliography215Acknowledgments227Index229
