SISTER, SINNER: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson, by Claire Hoffman

Laced with romance, tragedy, courtroom drama and an alleged kidnapping, the story of the famed evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson gripped the nation a century ago.

In “Sister, Sinner,” an engrossing new biography of McPherson, the journalist Claire Hoffman traces the spectacular life and career of a preacher who started a Christian movement that has spread across the globe and arguably shapes United States politics today.

Drawing crowds by the thousands in Los Angeles, McPherson was considered one of the 20th century’s first celebrities, opening the nation’s largest church in 1923. Three years later, wearing an emerald-green bathing suit, she swam away from the Pacific Ocean shore and disappeared.

While McPherson went missing, the media printed theories about kidnapping or even an affair. Her followers kept a vigil.

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In June 1926, about a month after her disappearance, she walked out of the Mexican desert and announced that she had been captured, tortured and threatened with sexual slavery. Later she was put on trial, accused of faking the kidnapping.

To this day, McPherson’s story fascinates scholars, journalists, film and TV makers and theater producers. (“Scandalous,” a 2012 Broadway musical about McPherson’s life, was coproduced by Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education in President Trump’s first term.) Responding to reader obsession during McPherson’s heyday, The New York Times published almost 75 articles about her during the year of her disappearance.

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