During and after his term in the federal penitentiary, Means retained his reputation as the ultimate man who knew all of the secrets. He put this reputation to work in his book, "The Strange Death of President Harding" (1930). The exposé alleged that Harding had been consciously complicit in all of the major scandals of his administration. The book's status as a bestseller derived in considerable measure from its insinuation that the President had been murdered by his wife, First Lady Florence Harding, with assistance from the couple's personal physician, Charles E. Sawyer. Mrs. Harding's alleged motivation was that she had become aware of her husband's corruption and marital infidelity and wanted to protect his reputation.