For the firm of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, stopping extortionists is not only grand, but excitingly lucrative.
When a pleasant afternoon’s bicycling through Golden Gate Park with a friend ends with the revelation of threatening letters, followed by a gunshot in a mansion garden, Sabina Carpenter knows this is a case that demands her immediate and undivided attention.
The questions her partner John Quincannon has to unravel are not difficult: Wrixton, a wealthy banker, has met his extortionist’s first demand, but the order to pay another $5,000 is too much to face. The banker’s real problem is something he doesn’t want to reveal. That was fine with the detective, and when he was informed that some private letters were involved and Wrixton absolutely needed them back, there was nothing more Quincannon needed in the way of background. As with so many of San Francisco’s elite, the bedroom doors never seemed to stay shut.
That was the easy part; far more difficult was the matter of the dead courier, murdered most foully in a locked room within a locked room, creating a trail that will take John Quincannon through most of San Francisco’s less savory places and end with a riverboat trip that is anything but a relaxing cruise.
The Dangerous Ladies Affair is the next thrilling installment in this charming historical mystery series from MWA Grand Masters Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini.
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“Despite being set in nineteenth-century San Francisco, this fifth book in the series…feels incredibly timely in today’s political climate…Coauthors Muller and Pronzini deftly tackle historical problems through the lens of their progressive detecting pair, allowing readers to extrapolate issues such as antifeminism and the value of protesting into a modern context.”
— Library Journal
“Fans who’ve followed the development of the pair’s professional relationship will gasp in delight at an unexpected invitation that comes in the book’s closing pages.”
— Booklist“The husband-and-wife authors manage the double plot with professional dexterity.”
— Kirkus Reviews“A glimpse of ‘less than respectable’ theater performances, passenger ships on the Sacramento River, and antisuffragette protestors, as well as…the delicate unfolding of tender feelings between the two protagonists.”
— Publishers WeeklyBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Marcia Muller is a New York Times bestselling author and creator of the critically acclaimed series starring private investigator Sharon McCone. She has also written many short stories. She has won six Anthony Awards, a Shamus Award, and is also the recipient of the Private Eye Writers of America's Lifetime Achievement Award as well as the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award, their highest accolade.
Bill Pronzini is the award-winning author of ninety novels, including forty-six in his Nameless Detective series, two others series, four nonfiction books, and numerous short stories. He has won three Shamus Awards and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for the best crime novel published in France. He earned the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of American and the Bouchercon Lifetime Achievement Award. He was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, making him and his wife, Marcia Muller, the second pair of married mystery writers to be so honored, with Ross Macdonald and Margaret Millar being the first.
Meredith Mitchell is an actress who has performed in such films as Mona Lisa Smile and The Reunion, on stage with Shakespeare & Company and the New Repertory Theatre, and on television on Good Morning America. She received her BA in psychology from Emory University and her MFA in acting from Brandeis University.
Mark Peckham is an actor and director based in Rhode Island. In addition to working with Trinity Rep, Virginia Stage Co., and many Boston-area theaters, he was the voice of Joseph Smith in the award-winning PBS documentary American Prophet with Gregory Peck.