The Furnace Girl: The Mysterious Case of Elfrieda Knaak. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.The Furnace Girl: The Mysterious Case of Elfrieda Knaak

On October 29,1928, in the quaint Chicago suburb of Lake Bluff, 30-year-old Elfrieda Knaak was found naked, with burns over more than half of her body, and propped up next to a furnace in the basement of the Village Hall. The events that took place in the following two weeks turned the idyllic village of Lake Bluff upside down as local and county law enforcement officials scrambled to determine what took place and who was responsible.  Ninety years later, the questions are still unanswered-- How did she get there? By what means was she so badly burned? Who could have perpetrated such a heinous crime? This baffling story became a nation-wide media sensation, thrusting the small town of Lake Bluff and its beloved Village Hall onto the front pages of newspapers from New York to Los Angeles. The Furnace Girl is Kraig Moreland's theory of what really happened to Elfrieda Knaak, as told to and beautifully written by Toby Jones, It is a stranger-than-fiction story, told through the eyes of Griff Morgan, a young orphan boy, whose harrowing journey makes him an accidental witness to what still remains one of the most puzzling, unsolved crimes of the early 1900s.   In this fictionalized account of the mystery, Griff and his young sister land at the Lake Bluff Orphanage, where they must learn to navigate their new surroundings and face their fears. The 12-year-old Griff stumbles upon unlawful activity throughout the town, from Elfrieda’s illicit relationship with a married man, (and prime suspect) to characters so dark that he feels his safety slipping away with every day.  The Furnace Girl appeals to crime buffs and those looking for a powerful coming-of-age story that pulls on even the toughest of heartstrings.

Kraig W.Moreland This is the first historical fiction book project for Kraig Moreland. Kraig has lived in Lake Bluff, Illinois his entire life. After working 10 years in advertising and marketing, he founded New Vision Athletics, Inc. in 1996, a privately-held sports league on the north shore of Chicago. Kraig and his wife Jennifer have raised their four children in Lake Bluff. They also co-founded the Margo Moreland Charitable Foundation in 1999, which supports children afflicted with Cerebral Palsy. Kraig has a great passion for film and local history. Over the last 15 years, he has helped write and co-produce the Lake Bluff Ghost Walk. In 2011, Kraig wrote, filmed, and produced a two-hour documentary "A Childhood Lost & Found - A Journey back to The Lake Bluff Children's Home," a heart-felt story of the Lake Bluff Orphanage, the children who lived there and the people who cared for them. The film was awarded a "Superior Award" from the Illinois Association of Museums in 2012. He is the recipient of the 2012 I Care Award, and also an honorary Paul Harris Fellow Rotary award,. Kraig was a featured speaker at Rosalind Franklin University Medical School in 2014 for the TedMed Live talk. Toby Jones Toby Jones has been writing since his early high school years. He studied Creative Writing at DePauw University and then earned a Masters of Divinity at Princeton Seminary. He went on to teach English at both the high school and college levels, including a four-year stint at Phillips Exeter Academy. The Furnace Girl is Toby’s first collaborative effort and foray into historical fiction. His previous two books, The Gospel According to Rock and The Way of Jesus focused on Toby’s spiritual journey.He currently serves a Congregational/UCC church in Gaylord, Michigan as part-time pastor, which allows him to continue writing, teaching, and counseling. Those in the Chicagoland area will be interested to know that Toby was one of the founders of Lake County P.A.D.S. – Public Action to Deliver Shelter. He served as its Director in the late 1980s. In the mid-1990s, Toby was awarded an N.E.H. grant to study the Depression Era in American History. He was also named a Klingenstein Fellow by Columbia’s Teachers’ College in 1996.