The Spook Lights Affair

In 1895 San Francisco, young debutantes don’t commit suicide at festive parties, particularly not under the watchful eye of Sabina Carpenter. But Virginia St. Ives evidently did, leaping from the foggy parapet at Sutro Heights in a shimmer of ghostly unnatural light. Then her body disappeared, creating an even more serious problem for the firm of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services.

Sabina hadn’t wanted to take the assignment, but her partner, John Quincannon, insisted that it would serve as their entrée into the world of the city’s ultrarich and powerful — and generate a mother lode of lucrative jobs. That meant money, and Quincannon loved the almighty dollar. Which was why, on his own, he was hunting the bandit who’d robbed the Wells, Fargo office of thirty-five thousand dollars. The 10 percent finder’s fee was a potent lure.

Working their separate cases (while Sabina holds John off with one light hand), the detectives give readers a tour of The City the way it was. From the infamous Barbary Coast to the expensive Tenderloin gaming houses and brothels frequented by wealthy men, John follows a danger-laden trail to unmask the murderous perpetrators of the Wells, Fargo robbery Meanwhile, Sabina works her wiles on friends and relatives of the vanished debutante until the pieces of the puzzle start falling into place.

Virginia’s erstwhile swain lives in Carville-by-the-Sea, a ramshackle collection of old trolley cars inhabited by the well-to-do bohemians. It is there that more spook lights come into play, and Sabina’s and John’s cases unexpectedly intersect — with the help of an oddly disguised gent, the shrewd “crackbrain” who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes.