For fans of Dateline-style investigations and true-crime mysteries, the story of a turn-of-the-century con man who married fifty women—and the one suspicious wife who helped expose his black-bag trail of theft, betrayal, and murder.

In turn-of-the-twentieth-century America, James P. Watson sells himself as Prince Charming in lonely hearts advertisements and “chance encounters,” courting women, marrying them quickly, then emptying their bank accounts and erasing them—by abandonment, murder, or sale into the sex trade. From the 1880s to 1920, he stalks and isolates victims, turning Canada, the Pacific Northwest, and California into killing fields.

When Watson’s final wife, Katherine Wombacher, notices the constant absences and the locked black valise he refuses to open, she hires Los Angeles’s top private detectives to investigate him. Their trail leads to Watson’s Hollywood doorstep and a suitcase packed with trophies—wedding rings, certificates, and jewelry from dozens of marriages.

Drawing on sensational magazine memoirs, newspaper coverage, and archival records, author Rebecca Knuth reconstructs Watson’s decades-long spree, centering her account on the women he silenced and the families left without answers. Only three bodies were ever recovered; twenty-two wives remained forever missing. Who was Watson—and what became of the women who vanished after saying “I do”?