A middle-aged, single missionary seems an unlikely person to be at the center of a foreign crisis, yet that's what happened to Ellen Stone in the fall of 1901. While traveling in Macedonia with a group of Christians, Miss Stone and a young Bulgarian woman were kidnapped by a group of men who had been lying in wait for the party. The men demanded a ransom that was the equivalent of several thousands of dollars. The unprecedented kidnapping caught U.S. officials by surprise. In the past, the U.S. had dealt with citizens taken captive by pirates on the sea, but they had no policy for dealing with American citizens who were kidnapped in foreign countries. It hadn't happened before. The government's response was further complicated by a domestic crisis – the shooting of President McKinley on September 6, just 3 days after Miss Stone's kidnapping.

Several groups had an interest in Miss Stone's rescue, and more often than not they were at cross purposes. The U.S. government and the mission agency both initially refused to raise and pay the ransom, so Miss Stone's family appealed to the public through the media. As week after week passed without a resolution of the crisis, the government and the mission agency gradually accepted the need to pay the ransom, particularly since there was so much public sympathy for Miss Stone and her companion, who, to everyone except her husband's surprise, was 5 months pregnant at the time of the kidnapping.

This account of the kidnapping, although written for a popular rather than an academic audience, is at times difficult to follow. Although Carpenter used archival sources as well as contemporary newspaper accounts, I'm sure it was difficult to separate the facts from the speculation and misinformation surrounding the incident. As new participants entered the story, Ms. Carpenter shifted the focus to the new arrival and his or her involvement with the rescue effort. This resulted in a lot of backtracking. I think a chronological approach might have worked better, although, given the nature of Balkan politics, the intricacies of the story would be difficult to describe in any format. ( )

In searching for books set in Macedonia to read for the Europe challenge, I came across this book about a missionary who had been abducted there around the turn of the twentieth century. I was excited because I had read several missionary biographies in the past and enjoyed them. My joy, however, was short-lived when I realized that the author focused not so much on the missionary as on the political turmoil between Macedonia and the United States during that time. It failed to give enough background about the national situation in Macedonia at the time to provide a reader not familiar with it enough insight to understand why Miss Stone was kidnapped in the first place and why her sympathies as well as those of her nurse rested with the kidnappers. The more I read of the book, the more I wished that the book in hand were an autobiography written by the Congregational missionary herself. The book simply failed to engage me, and it failed to give me a sense of what it was like for her in captivity. I was more interested in the missionary, but the author was more interested in the hostage negotiation and political aspects. ( )