Murdered Midas. A Millionaire, His Gold Mine, and a Strange Death on an Island Paradise

AGlobe and Mail Top 100 Book of the YearInthis "engrossing must-read" by "Canada's most accomplished popular historian" (ElleryQueen Mystery Magazine), the glittering life and brutal murder of Sir HarryOakes is newly investigated. Murdered Midas is "superior true-crimewriting" (The Globe and Mail). Onan island paradise in 1943, Sir Harry Oakes, gold-mining tycoon, philanthropistand one of the richest men in the British Empire, is murdered.
The news of hisdeath surges across the English-speaking world, from London, the Imperialcentre, to the remote Canadian mining town of Kirkland Lake in the NorthernOntario bush. The murder becomes celebrated as the crime of the century. Thelayers of mystery deepen as the involvement of Count Alfred de Marigny, Oakes'sson-in-law, comes into question. Also suspicious are the odd machinations ofthe governor of the Bahamas, the former King Edward VIII.
But despite asensational trial, no murderer is convicted. Rumours about Oakes's missingfortune are unrelenting, and fascination with the story has persisted fordecades. Award-winning biographer and popular historian Charlotte Gray explores the lifeof the man behind the scandal-from his early, hardscrabbledays during the massive mineral rush in Northern Ontario, to the fabulousfortune he reaped from his own gold mine, to his grandiose gestures ofphilanthropy.
And Gray brings fresh eyes to the bungled investigation andshocking trial on the remote colonial island, proposing an overlooked suspectin this long cold case. Murdered Midas is the story of the man behindthe newspaper headlines, a man both admired and reviled who, despite great wealth and public standing, never experienced justice.