title: Operation Jacknap by: Teich, Jack published: 2020-06-02 read: 2024-09-15 preview

Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Long Island Compromise was the reason for me to pick up this book. After I learned that that book was inspired by this, I knew I had to go back to the source.

Jack Teich was the real Long Island “millionaire” who got kidnapped. And after many decades of coming to terms what happened to him during and after his abduction in 1974, he published his own version of the story in 2020.

Kidnapping is traumatic. For the kidnapped, and all those around that person. It has tremendous long-lasting effects on those involved. In this case, one or two of the kidnappers were found after two years of police work, but most of the ransom of $750,000 was never found. And while the family, according to Jack Teich’s narration, got over it after several decades, they were still never the same again.

The book rather drily tells the sequential story of the kidnapping, the random payment, the release, the hunt for the kidnappers, the trial, the conviction, the hunt for the money. A very easy read, not shocking but still moving. What’s then shocking is looking up how many of these cases happen per year, how many children disappear, …

A quick read, not a dull moment in this book.