The Lost Brothers

The dread, the drama, and the hope of a break in one of the countrys oldest active missing-child investigations On a cold November afternoon in 1951, three young boys went out to play in Farview Park in north Minneapolis. The Klein brothersKenneth Jr., 8; David, 6; and Danny, 4never came home. When two caps turned up on the ice of the Mississippi River, investigators concluded that the boys had drowned and closed the case. The boys parents were unconvinced, hoping against hope that their sons would still be found. Sixty long years would pass before two sheriffs deputies, with new information in hand and the FBI on board, could convince the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to reopen the case. This is the story of that decades-long ordeal, one of the oldest known active missing-child investigations, told by a writer whose own research for an article in 1998 sparked new interest in the boys disappearance. Beginning in 2012, when deputies Jessica Miller and Lance Salls took up the Kleins cause, author Jack El-Hai returns to the mountain of clues amassed through the years, then follows the trail traced over time by the boys indefatigable parents, right back to those critical moments in 1951. Told in brisk, longform journalism style, The Lost Brothers captures the Kleins initial terror and confusion but also the unstinting effort, with its underlying faith, that carried them from psychics to reporters to private investigators and TV producersand ultimately produced results that cast doubt on the drowning verdict and even suggested possible suspects in the boys abduction. An intimate portrait of a parents worst nightmare and its terrible toll on a family, the book is also a genuine mystery, spinning out suspense at every missed turn or potential lead, along with its hope for resolution in the end.