About this item
The sensational, forgotten true story of a woman who murdered her married lover in Gilded Age San Francisco and the trial that epitomized the city's transformation from raucous frontier town into modern metropolis - from the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Sin. Shortly before dusk on November 3, 1870, just as the ferryboat El Capitan was pulling away from its slip into San Francisco Bay, a woman clad in black emerged from the shadows and strode across the crowded deck. Reaching under her veil, she drew a small pistol and aimed it directly at a well-dressed man sitting quietly with his wife and children. The woman fired a single bullet into his chest. "I did it and I don't deny it," she said when arrested shortly thereafter. "He ruined both myself and my daughter.
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Gary Krist has written four works of narrative nonfiction--The White Cascade, City of Scoundrels, Empire of Sin, and (his latest) The Mirage Factory, forthcoming in May of 2018. He is also the author of five works of fiction. He has been a regular book reviewer for The New York Times Book Review, Salon, and The Washington Post. His stories, articles, and travel pieces have been featured in National Geographic Traveler, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, Playboy, The New Republic, Esquire, Best American Mystery Stories, and on National Public Radio's "Selected Shorts." He has been the recipient of The Stephen Crane Award, The Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Lowell Thomas Gold Medal for Travel Journalism, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.
