Steam City Pirates

Steam City Pirates
Author: James Musgrave
Publisher: James Musgrave
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2013-12-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

As Seen in USA Today Talked about on "Authors on the Air" In this steampunk mystery, Jim Musgrave portrays late 19th century New York City with a horrifying yet comic vision of science gone awry. Detective Patrick O'Malley struggles with bizarre creatures and bawdy situations when he is pitted against steam-engineered pirates who aim to raid cargo ships and destroy lives. People breathe and release steam, fly out of windows and disappear, wield knives at lightning speed, and travel through time, but O'Malley also has a few tricks up his sleeve to help hold the dark forces back.

The Angel's Trumpet

The Angel's Trumpet
Author: James Musgrave
Publisher: James Musgrave
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2020-01-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

An 1887 Handmaid Gets Her Revenge in This Superb Historical Legal Thriller and Mystery Abraham Lincoln was shot inside Ford's Theater, Washington D.C. In 1887, the investigation team of attorney-detective Clara Shortridge Foltz visits the same theater, which has now been converted into an Army Medical Museum for tourists. But, the same mysterious "vibes" are circulating among the skulls, surgical instruments and garishly frightening scenes from the Civil War battlefield. Lincoln's ghost, it is rumored, is also wandering about. And below the creaky floors, there is a secret that cannot be revealed until the final act in this unique mystery and political satire. "James Musgrave's The Angel's Trumpet is one of those rare historical mysteries that is both entirely plausible and yet truly original. A richly researched adventure into the complex social web of Gilded Age Washington, featuring deeply-realized and re-imagined luminaries including actress Sarah Bernhardt and President and Mrs. Cleveland, the novel is also surprisingly modern in its sensibilities, a compelling romp into an earlier era's struggle with addiction and vice and secrecy and race relations, and, most of all, hidden sources of power. You will read this book in one sitting--and you will be very glad that you did. A meticulously-plotted gem from a master of the genre." Jacob M. Appel, author of the Dundee International Book Award winner, The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up.

The Stockton Insane Asylum Murder

The Stockton Insane Asylum Murder
Author: James Musgrave
Publisher: James Musgrave
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2019-02-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

“Madness can be seen as an intuitive probing into true reality.”–R. D. Laing Women were, among others, misdiagnosed as insane by alienists in the 1800s. My plot will involve a female child who has been institutionalized in 1887, but the aunt of this child comes to Clara Foltz to say she believes the child was admitted to the Stockton State Insane Asylum (the first such institution in California) because she knew about a murder that was committed on her wealthy parent’s estate. Clara solicits the help of Elizabeth Packard, the crusading (real) activist who was committed in the 1860s by her husband. It took Mrs. Packard three years to earn her freedom. Together with Ah Toy, they contrive a way to go undercover to gain admittance into the Women’s Building at Stockton to find the child and determine what happened to have her institutionalized. Children were regularly institutionalized, as were the elderly and the feeble-minded. Five of these characters will be readers who won a raffle held by the author. They will be suspect asylum patients inside the Stockton State Insane Asylum, the first public mental hospital in California. The author will be working with each reader, using their photos, descriptions and “personal idiosyncrasies” to craft the characters used in his mystery. BookLife Prize, 2018: ​​"A thrilling adventure, perfect for whodunit fans and historical fiction buffs." Kirkus Review: "An entertaining mix of fact, fiction, feminism, and the occult."

Dark Justice

Dark Justice
Author: James Musgrave
Publisher: James Musgrave
Total Pages: 149
Release: 2020-05-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

When Abortion was Against the Law, Attorney Clara Foltz Confronts the EstablishmentMa In the fifth mystery of the Portia of the Pacific series, Attorney and Detective Clara Shortridge Foltz and her partner, Attorney Laura de Force Gordon, become involved in two trials. One, an administrative case, Clara defends the accused, an abortifacient merchant, who is allegedly the incestuous father of a child by his sixteen-year-old daughter, who dies during an abortion attempt. But since this is 1887, no criminal charges can be made on the father, so the San Francisco police go after the midwife, a Chinese-American who treated the deceased, a half-Navajo girl, with acupuncture. Clara and Laura call in witnesses from the past, including a Medicine Man from the victim’s mother’s tribe in the Arizona Territory, the famous Claflin sisters, suffragists who live in England, and the State Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Junior. The supernatural curse of the tribe’s Skinwalker witches, in the form of a coyote, which allegedly can run on two legs like a man, and the strange practices of the Navaho Medicine man and his deaf assistant, cause this mystery to evolve into a much bigger conundrum than merely that of abortion. The search for truth will end on the Navaho Nation’s land, under less than ideal circumstances.

City of Bones

City of Bones
Author: Martha Wells
Publisher: Tordotcom
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2023-09-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250872774

Before Martha Wells captured the hearts of MILLIONS with her Murderbot series, there was Khat, Sagai, and Elen, and a city risen out of death and decay... The city of Charisat, a tiered monolith of the Ancients’ design, sits on the edge of the vast desert known as the Waste. Khat, a member of a humanoid race created by the Ancients to survive in the Waste, and Sagai, his human partner, are relic dealers working in the bottom tiers of society, trying to stay one step ahead of the Trade Inspectors. When Khat is hired by the all-powerful Warders to find relics believed to be part of one of the Ancients' arcane engines, he, and his party, begin unravelling the mysteries of an age-old technology. This they expected. They soon find themselves as the last line of defense between the suffering masses of Charisat and a fanatical cult, bent on unleashing an evil upon the city with an undying thirst for bone. That, they did not expect. This updated and revised edition is the author’s preferred text. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Pirate’s Paradox

Pirate’s Paradox
Author: Lisa Kessler
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2022-01-17
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1649372833

Pirate Caleb Graves may be an immortal, but he’s also a navigator and a man of science. And yet he can’t explain the erratic tides threatening Savannah. Nor the terrible dreams of sailing through a vicious, supernatural storm that he keeps having. But when fascinating, petite dynamo Diana Williams marches up to his ship and demands to speak to the captain, Caleb is caught up in a wave of unexpected fear...and an electric frisson of longing for this captivating woman. Diana wouldn’t be a true psychic if she didn’t listen to her spirit guide. So when dream after dream compels her to visit specific coordinates in the Atlantic, she can’t ignore it. Now, she just needs a ship. Good thing she knows about a particular pirate ship that’s in tip-top shape. Complete with a surly, albeit hot, navigator who doesn't immediately believe in her visions. But no matter how much Caleb objects, she’ll risk sending the entire crew—including herself—to the uncharted ocean. But both their dreams could be the key to saving Savannah and may even be a clue about the fabled lost city of Atlantis. Or it could damn them all to an unforgiving, watery grave. Each book in the Sentinels of Savannah series is STANDALONE: * Magnolia Mystic * Pirate's Passion * Pirate's Pleasure * Pirate's Persuasion * Pirate's Promise * Pirate’s Paradox * Pirate’s Protector * The Captain’s Curse