Protagonist: author Jack London
Setting: 19th-century San Francisco, California
Series: #1

First Line: "The burly seaman with the three-day growth of matted beard had his arms around two pretty Mexican girls and he squeezed them closer."

This book turned out to be an illustration in how one person's reading tastes can change. I bought it a few years ago because I liked the city and the time period it was set in, and I liked London as an author. In the years that followed I somehow acquired an almost pathological dislike of mysteries that have famous people as characters. (Don't ask me why.)

Two saloon girls have been killed, and Jack London finds himself investigating the case for the mayor of San Francisco. Things begin to get even more interesting when he discovers that both girls arrived in the city on the same ship from Alaska--the Jewel of the North. I could tell that the author had done his homework with the setting and time period, but I just
couldn't get into it. NEXT! ( )