Sue S. (Go4FanSue) reviewed on 1/21/2006 + 195 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 7

From Publishers Weekly
Romantic suspense writer Day (The Stone House) turns to mystery with laudable results. The year is 1905. Fleeing the confines of her staid Boston upbringing and a potential marriage to a loathsome suitor, the modern-thinking Caroline Fremont Jones opens a typewriting business in San Francisco using the name Fremont. Her business brings her in contact with the normally mild young attorney Justin Cameron, who reacts with hostility when Fremont takes dictation from "ancient gentleman" Li Wong. A week later, Li Wong is dead, and Fremont's office is ransacked. Another client, Edgar Allan Partridge, brings three manuscript stories to Freemont for typing but never returns to pick them up. His brooding tales are full of evil and very like those of his namesake. Fremont's investigations into the mysteries of her dead and missing clients lead her to suspect her rooming-house neighbor, whom she believes is a spy. While the plot plays out credibly, Day shines brightest at horror writing: the excerpts from Partridge's stories are truly frightening, their gothic element adding powerful punch to Fremont's first case.

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