The Body Snatchers Affair

November 17, 2014
MWA grand masters Muller and Pronzini’s solid third mystery set in 1890s San Francisco (after 2013’s The Spook Lights Affair) finds the relationship between PIs Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon at a delicate juncture. Carson Montgomery, a metallurgist, is seriously wooing Sabrina, forcing her to deal with John’s unrequited crush on her. Much to Sabina’s dismay, a man posing as Sherlock Holmes is investigating Carson. Meanwhile, John goes in search of a missing attorney who works for the Chinese tongs, and almost gets shot during a visit to an opium den in Chinatown. Both investigators end up dealing with cases involving snatched corpses, though these plot lines aren’t as strong as the authors’ best. Fans of Shirley Tallman’s Sarah Woolson books (Murder on Nob Hill, etc.) will enjoy this different perspective on the series’ shared setting. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency.

December 1, 2014

The third Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon historical mystery (The Spook Lights Affair) has the detecting duo in San Francisco's Chinatown searching for a missing husband and a corpse while a tong war brews. There's also an ambiguous Englishman who calls himself Sherlock Holmes lurking in the shadows.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2014
Muller and Pronzini, crime fiction's First Couple, return with new cases for San Francisco PIs John Quincannon and Sabina Carpenter. Nineteenth-century San Francisco is a growing city with a colorful population. The wife of a missing lawyer asks Quincannon to find her husband, who represents the leader of a Chinese tong. The lawyer is also fond of smoking opium and enjoying the ladies of the evening in Chinatown. Quincannon finds him, but someone takes a shot at them, killing the lawyer and narrowly missing him He then finds himself drawn into a conflict that could lead to a tong war over the stolen corpse of Bing Ah Kee, head of one of the tongs. Meanwhile, the widow of a millionaire asks Sabina to locate her late husband's body, which has disappeared from the family crypt. Sabina also has a new suitor who is quite charming, but her detective instinct tells her that he may be hiding something. Readers will enjoy the historical details as they ponder the cases and wonder about the Carpenter-Quincannon relationship.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)