Gregg Olsen's Taken in the Night

Gregg Olsen Taken in the Night

Plot: A kidnapping, an unsolved mystery and murder. A town shocked, a nation baffled, the FBI dumbfounded. A case that resembles the modern day JonBenet Ramsey case. This is a true crime mystery beyond understanding.

My Review and Thoughts:

This is a true crime book of a haunting and disturbing nature. It's about the savage murder of Charles Mattson, ten years old, kidnapped and murdered in Tacoma Washington. A truly intriguing story. This is a story of the ages because its a case that J. Edger Hoover's F.B.I. could not solve. Its a true stain and haunting reality that still plays with the imagination on just what happened and what took place. 

Taken in the Night is written by the one and only crime author Gregg Olsen who has given us many crime books such as Abandoned Prayers, A Twisted Faith, Bitter Almonds, If Loving You is Wrong. He has an interesting way in creating the ordeal and placing the reader into the situation. His style gives way to a classic who-dunnit reality and leaving you with a taste of not knowing.

I am a huge true crime buff and a huge mystery buff, add the two together and you have a perfect read in my book. Although, I do like when a mystery is solved and when it is not solved I become a little bummed, but in the end, a good unsolved mystery can linger and make you seek out more info in the case. This is the basis of this book, an unsolved mystery that the FBI needs help with, do you know who killed little Charles Mattson that's the point of this book to bring new light and new eyes upon this stained story. 

Charles Mattson

Dec. 27th 1936 there in his own living room, kidnapped by a masked man with a gun. This human monster also terrorized the other kids in the house, there the mystery begins as the man vanishes into the night and demands in a ransom note $28 thousand dollars. What happens next still haunts the town and our own government.

The writing is flawless and places you the reader inside the story. It gives the image of the 1930's and also the image of the ordeal in great descriptive wonder. This was a major case when science and technology started playing into solving cases. This was the first case to use plaster casts of footprints and tire tracks.

Amazingly the fingerprints found where compared to over 7 million fingerprint cards. Over 25 thousand people where investigated. To imagine a 10 year old bound, beaten with a hammer and then stabbed is a haunting nightmare induced reality. This is still considered one of the largest, if not the largest manhunts in FBI history. 

The files at the FBI consist of over 240 thousands pages of information. One of the biggest files on hand at the bureau. There are many promising suspects like Fred Orrin Haynes who had been found with bloodstained clothing and a stolen car. Jakob Muhlenbroich who was arrested for a 1940 kidnapping and was also in Tacoma at the time of Mattson's kidnapping. Shorty the Finn real name is unknown and has never been caught, a nationwide manhunt for over 20 years for this character.

This is a short book of only 76 pages. A great little gem in the fact we must remember poor little Charlie Mattson and never let his crime be forgotten. This book spreads the information and in hope one day his case will be solved. Seek out this small book and spread the word and investigate this crime in hopes someone will solve it.