Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise by Charlotte Gray
Murdered Midas: A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise by Charlotte Gray
On an island paradise in 1943, Sir Harry Oakes, gold-mining tycoon, philanthropist, and "richest man in the Empire," was murdered. The news of his death surged across the English-speaking world, from London, the imperial centre, to the remote Canadian mining town of Kirkland Lake in the Northern Ontario bush. The murder became celebrated as "the crime of the century."
The layers of mystery deepened as the involvement of Oakes's son-in-law, Count Alfred de Marigny, came quickly to be questioned, as did the odd machinations of the governor of the Bahamas, the former King Edward VIII. Despite a sensational trial, no murderer was ever convicted. Rumours were unrelenting about Oakes's missing fortune, and fascination with the Oakes story has persisted for decades.
Award-winning biographer and popular historian Charlotte Gray explores, for the first time, the life of the man behind the scandal, a man who was both reviled and admired -- from his early, hardscrabble days of mining exploration, to his explosion of wealth, to his grandiose gestures of philanthropy. And Gray brings fresh eyes to the bungled investigation and shocking trial, shedding new light on the suspects in this long cold case.
Murdered Midas is the story of the man behind the newspaper headlines, who, despite his wealth and position, was never able to have justice.
HarperCollins, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2019
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK. THERE IS A BLACK "CLOSEOUT/REMAINDER" MARK ON THE BOTTOM PAGE EDGES.