Eden Undone - A True Story of Sex, Murder and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II

At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allan Hancock and his crew of Smithsonian scientists came upon a gruesome scene: two bodies, mummified by the searing heat, on the shore of a remote Galapagos island. For the past four years Hancock and other American elites had traveled the South Seas to collect specimens for scientific research. On one trip to the Galapagos, Hancock was surprised to discover an equally exotic group of humans: European exiles who had fled political and economic unrest, hoping to create a utopian paradise. One was so devoted to a life of isolation that he''d had his teeth extracted and replaced with a set of steel dentures. As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness, paradise had turned into chaos. The three sets of exiles-a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatized World War I veteran and his young family, and an Austrian baroness with two adoring paramours-were riven by conflict. Petty slights led to angry confrontations. The baroness, wielding a riding crop and pearl-handled revolver, staged physical fights between her two lovers and unabashedly seduced American tourists. The conclusion was deadly: with two exiles missing and two others dead, the survivors hurled accusations of murder. Using never-before-published archives, Abbott Kahler weaves a chilling, stranger-than-fiction tale worthy of Agatha Christie. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the march to World War II, with a mystery as alluring and curious as the Galapagos itself, Eden Undone explores the universal and timeless desire to seek utopia-and lays bare the human fallibility that, inevitably, renders such a quest doomed.

About the author

Abbott Kahler

Product details

• Authors: Abbott Kahler
• Publisher: Harper Collins Uk
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 26.09.2024
• EAN: 9780008729721
• ISBN: 978-0-00-872972-1
• Dimensions: 159 mm x 240 mm x 36 mm
• Subjects: Children's and young people's books > Non-fiction books / Non-fiction picture books > History, politics; Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Biographies, autobiographies; Biography & True Stories, Prose: non-fiction, True stories, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Historical Events, TRAVEL / South America / Ecuador & Galapagos Islands, True stories: general, True stories of heroism, endurance & survival, Biography and non-fiction prose, TRUE CRIME / Historical, Galapagos Islands, Title;