Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery
By M. Louisa Locke
This book and I got off to a rough start. I loved
the title. I loved the premise. I love San Francisco, and I love historical/period
mysteries and strong female leads. Seems like we should have been a match made
in heaven.
Annie Fuller is a young widow living in San
Francisco in 1879. Her late husband had squandered her fortune before
committing suicide a few years earlier. She owns and manages a boarding house to
make ends meet, and also supplements her income as Madame Sibyl, a well-known
clairvoyant.
When one of Annie’s clients is found dead, all signs
point to suicide, but Annie isn’t so sure that that’s the case, and she winds
up doing some amateur sleuthing to try to determine what really happened. She butts
heads with Nate Dawson, the deceased’s family lawyer who is also trying to
learn the truth, and to her horror, begins to fall for him.
This book does have a few entertaining moments, and
the historical detail is apparent throughout, but the flow of the story was too
slow for my personal taste, and I came perilously close to giving up on it more
than once. I can be stubborn, however, and so kept on reading, in hopes that
something interesting would happen.
While I do appreciate details, especially in a period
mystery, it felt to me like there were far too many details that were not
relevant to the story. I didn’t like Annie for most of the book, although the
flirtation between Annie and Nate was kind of sweet, and I must doff my cap to
Nate’s investigative skills.
I cannot wholeheartedly recommend this book, but the
ending of the mystery itself was nicely done, and I could just picture the
scene in my head where the tables were turned on the killer and the killer was
incapacitated in time for the police to arrive.
All opinions are my own. No compensation was received for this review.
All opinions are my own. No compensation was received for this review.