Veteran reporter Roger Rapoport will sign his new book “Searching for Patty Hearst” at Fair Isle Books on Washington Island this coming Tuesday. The title is a true crime novel and published this year which is the 50th anniversary of the famous Patty Hearst kidnapping.  The author will sign books on Washington Island, a key location in the reimagined story. Rapoport will be at Fair Isle Books, 1885 Detroit Harbor Road  (between the post office and Red Cup Coffee House), from 1:30 to 3:30 PM on Tuesday, June 25th. 

“I still lived in California when Patty Hearst was kidnapped and I still remember how dizzying and fascinating the case was to me and everyone around me,” says bookstore owner Deb. “Getting to go back now and see the story through the eyes of someone who covered it closely from the beginning pulled me in immediately.”

Called a “gripping, evocative, and suspenseful novel” by historian Adam Hochschild and “fascinating and entertaining reimagining” by the Chicago Tribune’s Rick Kogan, the book is based on Rapoport’s extensive coverage of the kidnapping, including ghostwriting for her fiancé Steve Weed and interviewing kidnapper Bill Harris. 

From her initial kidnapping in February 1974 by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army and her decision to join their revolutionary cause to the SLA’s fatal clashes with the police and Hearst’s conviction for armed bank robbery, the story in Searching For Patty Hearst goes beyond the headlines to explore alternate theories of the case and the many complicated personalities of one of the seventies most famous dramas.