Tessa Arlen asked Anna Lee Huber:

Anna - I read somewhere that you were watching a documentary on Abraham Lincoln and this gave you the idea for this book. What aspect of his life inspired you?

Anna Lee Huber I was surprised to learn that in 1876 there had been a plot to steal Lincoln’s corpse from its grave in Springfield, IL. Apparently, a gang of Chicago counterfeiters decided to steal Lincoln’s body and ransom it back to the governor of Illinois in exchange for $200,000 and a full pardon for their best engraver of counterfeit plates, who was locked up in prison. Luckily an informant for the Secret Service became involved with the plot and was able to tip off the authorities to the plan.

I found the entire caper to be fascinating, and a light bulb went off inside my head. In the time and place in which I’ve set my stories—1830 Scotland—body snatching was a viable, though criminal, profession, and a terrible problem for authorities and upstanding citizens. Resurrectionists, as they were called, would steal recently buried corpses and sell them to anatomy schools for the modest sum of 8-10 guineas, depending on how fresh the body was and whether it had any interesting abnormalities. But how much more could a grave robber hope to make by ransoming the body of a loved one back to their wealthy family?

You can read more about this at http://www.jungleredwriters.com/2014/...

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