The Dangerous Ladies Affair

November 21, 2016
In MWA grand masters Muller and Pronzini’s sprightly fifth mystery set in late 19th-century San Francisco (after 2016’s The Plague of Thieves), Sabina Carpenter, an ardent suffragette, bicycling enthusiast, and self-described New Woman (“the term used to describe the modern woman who broke with the traditional role of wife and mother by working outside the home”), investigates death threats received by her new friend Amity Wellman, a Votes for Women activist. Meanwhile, poetry-reading but handy-with-his-fists John Quincannon, Sabina’s partner in Professional Detective Services, tracks down the mastermind of a blackmailing scheme and tackles a locked-room murder. The reader gets a glimpse of “less than respectable” theater performances, passenger ships on the Sacramento River, and anti-suffragette protestors, as well as being treated to the delicate unfolding of tender feelings between the two protagonists. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency.

November 15, 2016
The intrepid partners in Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, land a pair of cases that both begin with adulterous affairs but take them in very different directions.One of the rights San Francisco suffragette Amity Wellman evidently claims for women is the right to conduct sexual affairs without fear of the consequences. Her error is revealed by a series of anonymous letters warning of righteous retribution and the shot someone takes at her from outside her house--a shot that persuades her new friend Sabina Carpenter to investigate the source of the threats (Amity's slimy lover, tea importer Fenton Egan? his formidable wife, Prudence? Nathaniel Dobbs, head of the anti-suffragist Solidarity Party? any of the hundreds of the city's other anti-feminist activists?). John Quincannon, meantime, has a new client of his own: Woolworth National Bank president Titus Wrixton, whose own amours, duly documented by his letters, have already cost him $5,000 paid to a blackmailer who's now come back for a second helping. Quincannon arranges to observe the transfer of the second installment and follows the man who's taken the valise full of cash all the way to Gunpowder Alley, where someone shoots him dead inside a bolted room inside a bolted apartment. It doesn't help a bit to identify the victim as tobacconist Raymond Sonderberg; what's important is that the valise has vanished, along with Titus Wrixton's hope of untroubled days. The husband-and-wife authors (The Plague of Thieves Affair, 2016, etc.) manage the double plot with professional dexterity. Sadly, though, each of the separate cases peaks around the halfway point before ingenuity and interest fade. And shouldn't the title really be The Dangerous Ladies Affairs?

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January 1, 2017

Despite being set in 19th-century San Francisco, this fifth book in the series (after The Plague of Thieves Affair) featuring ex-Pinkerton operative and ardent suffragette Sabina Carpenter and poetry-reading but quick on the draw ex-Secret Service man John Quincannon feels incredibly timely in today's political climate. This time around, the sleuthing duo have two cases brewing. Carpenter helps fellow suffragette and "New Woman" Amity Wellman identify her blackmailer; Wellman had received a series of threatening letters after asserting a woman's right to conduct her own sexual affairs without the fear of retribution. Meanwhile, Quincannon is probing a locked-room murder and another blackmailer who has returned for a second helping of funds from an anxious banker. VERDICT While the two cases don't always mesh cleanly, 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.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2016
The fifth in the Carpenter and Quincannon historical mystery series (following The Plague of Thieves Affair, 2016) by the esteemed husband-and-wife writing team features blackmail, adultery, and the provocative sight of young women upon bicycles in 1890s Golden Gate Park. Sabina Carpenter, a former Pinkerton operative, and exSecret Service agent John Quincannon are partners in a San Francisco detective agency. Quincannon has taken the case of a wealthy banker who can no longer keep up with his extortionist's demands and needs John to find the blackmailer. Sabina is helping a suffragette who has been receiving threatening letters. The chemistry between Sabina and John remains a huge part of the series' appeal. 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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)