True Crime Historian Abbott Kahler Discusses “Eden Undone”

St. Louis County Library Foundation’s Favorite Author Series and Left Bank Books are pleased to host bestselling true crime author Abbott Kalher for a discussion and signing of “Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II.”

The event will take place on Tuesday, November 12, 7:00 p.m. at the Clark Family Branch, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63131. Books will be available for purchase and signing from Left Bank Books. 

Bestselling author of “The Ghosts of Eden Park,” Abbott Kahler shares an incredible true story of murder, romance, and a fateful search for utopia in the Galápagos.

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 Galápagos 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 Galápagos, 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.

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. 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 Galápagos 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.

Abbott Kahler is the New York Times bestselling author of “Sin the Second City;” “American Rose;” “Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy;” and “The Ghosts of Eden Park.” She is the host of “Remus: The Mad Bootleg King,” a podcast about legendary Jazz Age bootlegger George Remus.

Program sites are accessible. With at least two weeks' notice, accommodations will be made for persons with disabilities. Call 314-994-3300 or contact us.