In January 1889, when Rudolf, the crown prince of Austria, was found dead in an Imperial hunting lodge alongside his 17 year old mistress, Baroness Mary Vestera, it triggered a monumental cover up, a crisis that shook the royal families of Europe, and changed the direction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, one of the world’s great powers. Some believe it even helped set the scene for the outbreak of the First World War by removing the reformer Rudolf from the line of succession and replacing him eventually with the very different Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination triggered the conflict.

Writer Lucy Coatman lives and works in Vienna where she is writing a new book on the case. She’s already discovered many new documents that reveal the strange psychological and sexual dynamic between the doomed lovers. Lucy’s work reveals an extraordinary world of aristocratic decadence, infidelity, drug use, mental illness and venereal disease. Did Mayerling witness a suicide pact or a murder? Was Rudolf a manipulator, drawing an inexperienced teenager into his strange melancholic obsessions? Or was Mary herself wrapped up in a morbid fantasy life and a willing actor in this lethal drama?

You will be able to buy Lucy’s book at the Scandal Monger’s own bookstore, along with thousands of others. All profits are shared between independent booksellers and podcasters.

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