Murder on Nob Hill
This promising if melodramatic debut is set in 1880 San Francisco and is narrated by the spirited Sarah Woolson. Educated by her attorney father, Sarah marches into the law firm of one of his associates and demands a job. She gets it, too, and finds herself working on the case of a young widow accused of murdering her older and abusive husband. Contending with the scorn of her male colleagues, Sarah fights for her place in the firm and is soon involved in a heady stew that includes Chinese gangs and child slavery; a club in which gentlemen indulge their most forbidden habits; and other murders that, like the first, involve sexual mutilation. The language tends to the purple, and the local color is laid on thickly; however, the serenely self-assured Sarah, who has a possible love interest in the Scottish colleague she enrages regularly, keeps the reader on her side and turning pages till the end. Stay tuned.GraceAnne DeCandidoCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved