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I raced through this murder mystery Good Housekeeping 10 Books to Read Right Now

Smiley is a masterful writer Sunday Times

Outstanding Her sentences are sublime Roxane Gay

From a brilliant Pulitzer Prizewinning and bestselling author a rollicking murder mystery set in Gold Rush California as two young prostitutes follow a trail of missing girls

Monterey 1851 Ever since her husband was killed in a bar fight Eliza Ripple has been working in a brothel It seems like a better life at least at first The madam Mrs Parks is kind the men are relatively well behaved and Eliza has attained what few women have financial security But when the dead bodies of young women start appearing outside of town a darkness descends that she cant resist confronting Side by side with her friend Jean and inspired by her reading especially by Edgar Allan Poes detective Dupin Eliza pieces together an array of clues to try to catch the killer all the while juggling clients who begin to seem more and more suspicious

Eliza and Jean are determined not just to survive but to find their way in a lawless town on the fringes of the Wild West a bewitching combination of beauty and danger as what will become the Civil War looms on the horizon

As Mrs Parks says Everyone knows that this is a dangerous business but between you and me being a woman is a dangerous business and dont let anyone tell you otherwise