On Thanksgiving Day 1892, a beautiful young woman appeared mysteriously at the most exclusive resort in Southern California - the new Hotel del Coronado. There was something dark and ominous about her from the very beginning. She rented a room, and waited for an even more mysterious man who never did show up. In five days, she turned from a vibrant and healthy beauty into a trembling soul who could barely walk. Then, on the night of a thundering sea storm, she shot herself dead on the back steps of the hotel. Nobody knew who she was, or why she had come. Her case was instantly a national sensation, tinged with hints of unsavory plots and conspiracies in high circles. For weeks, her body lay on display in a San Diego mortuary, a morbid Victorian spectacle for thousands to view. Bit by bit, the press reported new, stunning, contradictory details that have not been resolved even today. This book proposes a dramatic new theory that examines the 'Beautiful Stranger' in a national and global context. Her identity changed almost daily as puzzled police across the nation searched for her brother, her doctor, her husband, her lover...to no avail. Was the flawed coroner's inquest just botched, or a cover-up? Her story rubs elbows with kings, queens, tycoons, presidents, and Congressmen - always had a dark and disturbing tinge. Her ghost haunts the hotel even today.