Leavenworth Train: A Fugitive's Search for Justice in the Vanishing West

What a wonderful book! In addition to being a terrifically exciting story, Jackson, the author, vividly creates a sense of time and place. One is transported to America at the turn of the century - a period of transition and change in which Frank Grigware, the protagonist, is innocently and irreparably caught. This book succeeds on every level. Outstanding!

I picked this book up on a whim and once started I couldn't put it down. It is a great true story of the real old west. Young men seeking adventure, train robbers, unjust imprisonmemnt, daring escapes and more. You should really give this one a try!

In 1906, the twenty year old Frank Grigware announced to his family that he was going to see the world. They had been living in eastern Washington for years, and he wanted to see more of the West than Spokane. His mother understood completely; it is not an uncommon occurrence for a young man to want to roam before settling down to respectable ways. He hooked up with his best friend Frank Golden, and they figured they would do some prospecting in northern Idaho. A tough life loomed, but Grigware had no idea that he would as a result be accused and convicted of a crime he did not commit, incarcerated in the toughest prison in existence, escape from the prison, and remain on the lam from his country for the rest of his life. The astonishing story of Grigware's life is told in _Leavenworth Train: A Fugitive's Search for Justice in the Vanishing West_ (Carroll & Graf) by Joe Jackson, who shows that Grigware was guilty of nothing but naïveté when he associated with train robbers. He was, however, found as guilty as the rest of them, and a quick decision gave all the defendants life imprisonment, at Leavenworth, the first US federal penitentiary.It was only six months into his sentence that Grigware, who the prisoners could tell was not really one of them, was let in on an escape by four other prisoners. Using the classic ploy of threatening with guns skillfully crafted of wood from one of the shops and blackened with shoe polish, they hijacked a train that regularly supplied the prison. Grigware was the only one not captured quickly, and for the next 24 years was one of America's most wanted men. The trail was long cold, even after President Woodrow Wilson commuted the sentence of the other robbers because the evidence in the case was so lacking. The FBI refused to back down, and it spied on members of Grigware's family, which was sadly fractured by his escape. Grigware in sorrow knew he could communicate with none of them, but set up a respectable life in Canada, becoming a Canadian citizen and a well-liked member of the community of Jasper, Alberta. He was not found until 1934, and what happened afterwards is of great charm. There was a groundswell of Canadian public opinion against any sort of extradition; even the game warden circulated a petition. The mild Grigware had made many friends, and he was the sort of reliable citizen Canadians wanted. Grigware's wife (who had not known of his past), when the press reported her simple statement, "Nothing will ever break up our home," made up the minds of any Canadians that had doubts on the issue. It became an international incident, and a clash of redemptive versus retributive justice.Grigware was reunited with his family, which had long thought him dead; the meeting with his aging mother could not have been sweeter. But he could not return with her to the US, nor return for her funeral. President Roosevelt waived extradition, but no pardon was ever issued, so if he ever came back to

I cannot recommend this book highly enough! I loved every single page, and I hated to see it end. (For me, that's rare.) Action, adventure, excitement, and suspense...all set in, to quote the book's subtitle, "the vanishing west."Well worth the money and well worth reading. In fact, I think I'll read it a second time.

Veteran Virginia crime journalist Jackson strips bare a capricious justice system as "the servant of time and place and ambition." In that, this book is a philosophical sequel to his Pulitzer-nominated "Dead Run," a contemporary exploration of Death Row.Jackson is an immensely appealing writer and a graceful reporter. "Leavenworth Train" is meticulously documented, but the engaging narrative flows seamlessly. Grigware was dead long before Jackson took up his story, but the haunted fugitive comes alive in these absorbing pages, a headlong flight into justice and mercy.