The day they kidnapped Queen Victoria — H.K. Fleming

It is a calm, untroubled day in 1868. The beloved Queen Victoria is traveling by train to Ayrshire, to unveil yet another memorial to her late husband Albert. Yet certain unseemly activities on this otherwise placed day--the cutting of telegraph-wires on the Queen's route and the doping of her sergeant-footman--convince two of Victoria's loyal subjects that something unspeakable is afoot. Someone is planning to kidnap Queen Victoria. Author H.K. Fleming has written an exciting thriller set in the unlikely world of crinolines and steam engines that was Victorian England. THE DAY THEY KIDNAPPED QUEEN VICTORIA is both a tongue-in-cheek look at he not-so-proper side of this proper age and a complex web of plot and counterplot that will keep the reader fascinated until the final climax, a desperately devious chess game played with special trains racing to save Her Imperiled Majesty. Exposed at last--the sensational affair in which the Royal Train is hijacked and the lives of Queen Victoria, Edward, Prince of Wales (the Heir to the throne) and their distinguished retinues are imperiled. Can the valour of Poet Laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson, and John Brown, the Queen's faithful gillie, allied to the guile of Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister, save the day, or will the fiendish Fenian plot succeed in changing the course of history? H.K. Fleming, born in Birkenhead in 1901, emigrated to the USA in 1924 and now lives in retirement with his wife in California. He has had extensive experience in American government and in the newspaper world (he was managing editor of the Baltimore Sun for two years during the Mencken era). Mr. Fleming has written many articles for magazines and journals, covering such subjects as ESP, Einstein, and Californian life, and is the Author of the novel "Eden Eden." He has two daughters, Pamela and Paula, who live in Baltimore and London, respectively.