The opening scene of this novel has the protagonist running
down the beach, with a rotting head in a bucket, trying to escape a policeman.
Hampered by long, tight, skirts and fancy shoes, she almost doesn’t make it,
but in the end she escapes.
Set in 1908 Los Angeles, Anna Blanc, society girl, has (in
the last novel, which I did not read) turned crime solver and spurned her
arranged engagement. This has caused her father to disown her and cast her out
without a penny. She is living in a rundown apartment, surrounded by fancy
furniture and fine dresses and hats, shoes unfit for walking the disgusting
streets of LA, and a few pieces of jewelry that she had loaned out the day her
father kicked her out. She lives on a diet of Cracker Jacks and tinned kippers,
having, at the beginning, no income and a lot of back rent to pay.
She has now been hired as assistant matron at the LA
precinct house and jail; her job is to chase down runaways, deal with ladies of
the night, interview women who feel uneasy talking to male police, and
basically not do anything exciting. But when she gets taken along on an
interview in Chinatown, the case gets interesting. The body of a white woman is
found in a trunk- in the room of a Chinese man. Given the rampant racism of the
time, this could ignite riots. The investigation must take place quickly and
quietly. Add to this an incipient tong war over kidnapped child prostitutes,
and a personal angle with the slain white woman, and we have a complex
narrative. Of course there is a romantic thread, too, one that started in the
previous book, with a detective who wants to marry and have a family. Anna
refuses to swear obedience to anyone, and does not want to have children. And then there is that rotting head…
I loved the writing. Kincheloe brought old Los Angeles to
life for me, including the non-tourist part of Chinatown where much of the
story takes place. The author puts details about things like dress, enough to
show the era, but not *too* much detail. I liked Anna, although she is a little
bit too full of her ability to take care of herself. Like it or not, a woman in
heavy skirts and a corset, untrained in weapons or self-defense, cannot wander
into just any situation and expect to fight her way out! The other characters
are good, and I hope they get fleshed out more as the series continues. The
killer was one I didn’t expect, but the killer had reasons that made sense for
the time and place. Five stars.
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Neither of these things influenced my review.
Must read!
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