In 1912, four-year-old Bobby Dunbar, the son of an upper middle-class Louisiana family, went missing in the swamps. Eight months later, he was miraculously found in the company of a wandering piano-tuner, William Walters, who was arrested and tried for kidnapping. But when a destitute single mother came forward to claim the boy as her son, not Bobby Dunbar, the case exploded. Find out more

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AMAZON • BARNES & NOBLE • INDIEBOUND

In 2000, Bobby's granddaughter, coauthor Margaret Dunbar Cutright, began to dig into the legend. After years of research, debate, and a DNA test, the truth finally emerged.

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Explore the research

“A fascinating narrative about an ostensible kidnapping and a 90-year case of mistaken identity, fully steeped in the flavor of the era… a narrative about the fierceness of parental love, the flaws of the legal system, and ultimately about how we derive our own sense of who we are.” The Boston Globe

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More praise

• Thursday, March 7, 6-9 PM LA Library Association Baton Rouge

• Monday, March 18, 6:30-8:30 PM New York Public Library, NYC

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