Dianne Day (1938–2013)

Fremont Jones— an unusual name for a woman, but then it was an unusual time and place — San Francisco in 1906.

Fremont has her own business, a typing service, and is doing fine but the San Francisco earthquake changes all that. She salvages her typewriter from the ruins of her business and her few possessions from where she lives.

While salvaging what she could at her office, she notices a broken crate in a store room. The contents were items you’d expect to see in a museum. Why would her landlords have such items? Smuggling? This is the beginning to some very strange happenings in Fremont’s life.

She takes up an offer of a place to live from a woman she had done some typing for in the past. What the woman presents as her life turns out to not be actually true.

Fremont also helps her friend, Meiling Li, search for a pouch of perarls that are somewhere in the ruins of her family home. A gift from her grandfather she plans to use to finance a college education and provide an independent life for herself. It is a dangerous project, given the looters that are about.

Fremont is a fan of Sherlock Holmes and patterns her investigative style after him. She still manages to get herself in some bad situations, even when she tries to be logical.
It’s an enjoyable read with an interesting cast of characters, interesting setting and a touch of romance and humour.… (meer)