Emperor Norton's Ghost,A Fremont Jones Mystery

ABOUT THIS BOOK

The year is 1908, and Fremont Jones and her partner in life and work, Michael Archer Kossoff, have returned to San Francisco where they are living separately but in the same house (it's a double Victorian on Divisadero Street). Also on the ground floor of Fremont's side of the house is their new business: J&K Investigations. Their third business partner in this venture is Aloysius, or Wish, Stephenson, whom they have liberated from the San Francisco Police Department, where readers of the series met him after the 1906 Earthquake in FIRE AND FOG.

This fourth mystery in the Fremont Jones series tells the tale of Fremont's first case as a private investigator. Someone is murdering mediums, of the Spiritualist sort, in San Francisco. The crimes touch close to home for Fremont Jones not only because the victims are women, but also because her new friend, Frances McFadden, has succumbed to a fascination with Spiritualism that has put Frances's life in danger -- not only from the unknown killer of mediums, but also from her wealthy but physically abusive husband. Soon Fremont's life will be in danger as well. While Fremont pursues this investigation, Wish Stephenson is quietly involved in an on-the-side investigation of his own that has him uncovering some unsavory facts about cemeteries. Emperor Norton, who was a real person who lived and was much beloved in San Francisco in the 19th Century, makes a ghostly appearance -- and it is not altogether certain his influence in benign.

The stress and strains of post-earthquake San Francisco under reconstruction form an element in the storyline, which as usual is as much about an in-depth exploration of the novel's colorful characters as it is about the mechanics of following a twisting and well-researched plot.