Fourteen years ago, while researching an old murder case, I came across a 1941 tabloid passage so absurd that I committed it entirely to memory: “Was Dr. Ritter, With His Steel Teeth, Poisoned in Paradise? Was ‘Baroness Eloise,’ Known as ‘Crazy Panties,’ Who Ruled the Island With a Gun and Love, Murdered by One of Her Love Slaves After She Had Driven the Other to His Death? And Why is Frau Ritter Going Back to What She Once Called ‘Hell’s Volcano?’—the Mystery of the Galapagos Island Which Germany Covets, to Be Solved At Last?”
After a feverish few days in the archives, I confirmed that “Crazy Panties” more than satisfactorily embodied her nickname. One visitor to the Galápagos island of Floreana called the baroness’s local hotel “a festering sex complex” where she seduced tourists and hosted orgies. I pivoted from my original project about the old murder case. This was the book I should write. Aside from these eccentric European exiles, I was intrigued by Floreana itself. Why did a small, uninhabited island—mostly barren and covered in volcanic rock—attract them?
