Dead Move: Kate Morgan and the Haunting Mystery of Coronado, 2nd Edition (Nonfiction; Scholarly Analysis) Review
Dead Move: Kate Morgan and the Haunting Mystery of Coronado, 2nd Edition (Nonfiction; Scholarly Analysis) Overview
Dead Move is a compelling, but detailed, scholarly analysis, of a famous San Diego/Coronado cold case that has baffled investigators for over a century.
John T. Cullen has published two books about this true story. For a rousing, 1892 noirish period thriller, based on this true story, please see the novel (fiction) Lethal Journey.
For a compelling, detailed analysis that challenges the reader’s puzzle-solving interest, read this book--Dead Move: Kate Morgan and the Haunting Mystery of Coronado (over 120 end notes).
It was a story of love and betrayal, of twisted motives and crime gone wrong, with global implications. It was yet more--that grand Victorian classic dear to so many great authors and painters—the Fallen Angel, a woman of inner purity and goodness, laid low because of callous people in an evil world. The fictional ideal is best remembered in Thomas Hardy’s Tess D’Urberville. But the dead beauty in San Diego was that Fallen Angel for real, and millions mourned her around the nation.
Her violent and enigmatic death was a rousing 1892 crime story, and it has become one of America’s premier ghost stories. Known as ‘the Beautiful Stranger,’ she is said to haunt the U.S. National Landmark Hotel del Coronado to this very day.
The story instantly mushroomed into a national scandal in November 1892. It was filled with rumors of sexual liaisons and misbehavior involving men in high society. The truth, revealed by the author, is far more remarkable. Loose ends at the periphery actually lead to the White House, to the court of Queen Victoria, and to the Iolani Palace in Honolulu.
This scholarly analysis investigates a baffling cold case that has puzzled investigators for well over a century. It was the most stunning and scandalous story of 1892, causing a national sensation in the Yellow Press, when it broke from coast to coast. Daily, even hourly dispatches were sent breathlessly, via telegraph—the Internet of its day—from San Diego to newspapers around the country.
A young woman of remarkable poise and beauty checked into the fabulous Hotel del Coronado resort near San Diego, under a false name, and died inexplicably. She waited for an even more mysterious man who never did show up. On the night of a thundering sea storm, she died violently by the beach stairs. Did she commit suicide in despair over a love affair gone bad, or was she murdered? It must be one of the two, and either case has strong, possible reasons. Some parts of the legend say her husband, Tom Morgan, a gambler and a murderer, did away with her. The coverup angle poses yet more possibilities. One thing the author demonstrates with convincing clarity: she was not just a poor young woman at the end of her rope. She was part of a conspiracy, as is clarified in this book.
For nearly two weeks, her body lay on display in a San Diego mortuary, a morbid Victorian spectacle for thousands to view. Hour by hour, the press reported new, stunning, contradictory details that have not been resolved even today. Her proposed identity changed almost daily as puzzled police across the nation searched for her brother, her doctor, her husband, her lover...to no avail.
Her story rubs elbows with kings, queens, tycoons, presidents, and other high and mighty. Her dark shadow haunts the hotel even today.
For the record, a story like this naturally attracts lurid and baseless speculation. Books and the Internet continue to relate versions at best garbled, all all too often simply untrue. The author recommends only two publications on the subject. Both are responsible nonfiction books of a scholarly (but entertaining and readable) nature: the author’s own Dead Move (print and digital), and the hotel’s official Heritage Department print book, titled Beautiful Stranger: The Ghost of Kate Morgan and the Hotel del Coronado.
Dead Move: Kate Morgan and the Haunting Mystery of Coronado, 2nd Edition (Nonfiction; Scholarly Analysis) Specifications
Dead Move is a compelling, but detailed, scholarly analysis, of a famous San Diego/Coronado cold case that has baffled investigators for over a century.
John T. Cullen has published two books about this true story. For a rousing, 1892 noirish period thriller, based on this true story, please see the novel (fiction) Lethal Journey.
For a compelling, detailed analysis that challenges the reader’s puzzle-solving interest, read this book--Dead Move: Kate Morgan and the Haunting Mystery of Coronado (over 120 end notes).
It was a story of love and betrayal, of twisted motives and crime gone wrong, with global implications. It was yet more--that grand Victorian classic dear to so many great authors and painters—the Fallen Angel, a woman of inner purity and goodness, laid low because of callous people in an evil world. The fictional ideal is best remembered in Thomas Hardy’s Tess D’Urberville. But the dead beauty in San Diego was that Fallen Angel for real, and millions mourned her around the nation.
Her violent and enigmatic death was a rousing 1892 crime story, and it has become one of America’s premier ghost stories. Known as ‘the Beautiful Stranger,’ she is said to haunt the U.S. National Landmark Hotel del Coronado to this very day.
The story instantly mushroomed into a national scandal in November 1892. It was filled with rumors of sexual liaisons and misbehavior involving men in high society. The truth, revealed by the author, is far more remarkable. Loose ends at the periphery actually lead to the White House, to the court of Queen Victoria, and to the Iolani Palace in Honolulu.
This scholarly analysis investigates a baffling cold case that has puzzled investigators for well over a century. It was the most stunning and scandalous story of 1892, causing a national sensation in the Yellow Press, when it broke from coast to coast. Daily, even hourly dispatches were sent breathlessly, via telegraph—the Internet of its day—from San Diego to newspapers around the country.
A young woman of remarkable poise and beauty checked into the fabulous Hotel del Coronado resort near San Diego, under a false name, and died inexplicably. She waited for an even more mysterious man who never did show up. On the night of a thundering sea storm, she died violently by the beach stairs. Did she commit suicide in despair over a love affair gone bad, or was she murdered? It must be one of the two, and either case has strong, possible reasons. Some parts of the legend say her husband, Tom Morgan, a gambler and a murderer, did away with her. The coverup angle poses yet more possibilities. One thing the author demonstrates with convincing clarity: she was not just a poor young woman at the end of her rope. She was part of a conspiracy, as is clarified in this book.
For nearly two weeks, her body lay on display in a San Diego mortuary, a morbid Victorian spectacle for thousands to view. Hour by hour, the press reported new, stunning, contradictory details that have not been resolved even today. Her proposed identity changed almost daily as puzzled police across the nation searched for her brother, her doctor, her husband, her lover...to no avail.
Her story rubs elbows with kings, queens, tycoons, presidents, and other high and mighty. Her dark shadow haunts the hotel even today.
For the record, a story like this naturally attracts lurid and baseless speculation. Books and the Internet continue to relate versions at best garbled, all all too often simply untrue. The author recommends only two publications on the subject. Both are responsible nonfiction books of a scholarly (but entertaining and readable) nature: the author’s own Dead Move (print and digital), and the hotel’s official Heritage Department print book, titled Beautiful Stranger: The Ghost of Kate Morgan and the Hotel del Coronado.
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