The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

Praise

“A thrilling history… Kertzer’s careful scholarship and fine narrative skill make a great drama.” —Boston Globe

“A lucidly drawn, dramatic narrative.  Kertzer’s account reads like a courtroom drama. As shapely and surprising as fiction.” —Newsday

“Brilliant… a book that has all the merits of a historical thriller.” —Daily News

“Fascinating… full of rich material…. Kertzer has unearthed an evocative and unjustly forgotten episode of history.” —The Washington Post Book World 

“A gripping, vivid and well-documented rendering. A highly readable work that is dramatic, moving and informative, as interesting to general readers as it will no doubt prove to historians.” –San Francisco Chronicle 

“David Kertzer tells a riveting take, with great mastery of the sources.” —The New York Review of Books 

“David Kertzer’s account of this extraordinary but largely forgotten moment in history is told with verve. Sounding much like a conventuonal thriller writer, Kertzer combines a gripping yarn with a details historical reconstruction.” –Financial Times 

“A spellbinding and intelligent book. The story itself isutterly compelling, but is entirely Kertser’s skill as a historian and a writer that allows him to maintain the suspense…. Deftly constructed.” –Toronto Globe and Mail 

“I read the book, all of it, cover to cover, nonstop, gasping, amazed. What an important and spectacular work! (With the narrative pace of a gripping novel.) One of the most impressive reading nights of my life.” –Cynthia Ozick

“A scrupulously researched, elegantly written narrative that deftly combines the take of one family’s anguished and fruitless efforts to reclaim their child and the stirring saga of the Risorgimento.” –The Jerusalem Report