Abbott Kahler, formerly writing as Karen Abbott, is the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City; American Rose; Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy; The Ghosts of Eden Park; and a novel, Where You End. She is also the host of Remus: The Mad Bootleg King, a podcast about legendary Jazz Age bootlegger George Remus. A native of Philadelphia, she lives in New York City.
<p>An incredible true story of murder, romance, and a fateful search for utopia in the</p><p>Galápagos–from the New York Times bestselling author of The Ghosts of Eden Park</p><p>At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allan Hancock and his crew of</p><p>Smithsonian scientists came upon a gruesome scene: two bodies, mummified by the searing heat, on</p><p>the shore of a remote Galápagos island. For the past four years Hancock and other American elites</p><p>had traveled the South Seas to collect specimens for scientific research. On one trip to the</p><p>Galápagos, Hancock was surprised to discover an equally exotic group of humans: European exiles</p><p>who had fled political and economic unrest, hoping to create a utopian paradise. One was so devoted</p><p>to a life of isolation that he'd had his teeth extracted and replaced with a set of steel dentures.</p><p>As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness, paradise had turned into chaos. The</p><p>three sets of exiles–a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatized World War I veteran and his young</p><p>family, and an Austrian baroness with two adoring paramours–were riven by conflict. Petty slights led</p><p>to angry confrontations. The baroness, wielding a riding crop and pearl-handled revolver, staged</p><p>physical fights between her two lovers and unabashedly seduced American tourists. The conclusion</p><p>was deadly: with two exiles missing and two others dead, the survivors hurled accusations of murder.</p><p>Using never-before-published archives, Abbott Kahler weaves a chilling, stranger-than-fiction tale</p><p>worthy of Agatha Christie. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the march to World</p><p>War II, with a mystery as alluring and curious as the Galápagos itself, Eden Undone explores the</p><p>universal and timeless desire to seek utopia–and lays bare the human fallibility that, inevitably,</p><p>renders such a quest doomed.</p>
