1894, San Francisco. A debutante's missing body, murder most foul, a Wells, Fargo robbery, and weird spectral lights in the fog make for a gaslight-era tale of mystery and detection.

For the firm of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, stopping extortionists is not only grand, but excitingly lucrative. When a pleasant afternoon's bicycling through Golden Gate Park with a friend ends with the revelation of threatening letters, followed by a gunshot in a mansion garden, Sabina Carpenter knows this is a case that demands her immediate and undivided attention.The questions her partner John Quincannon has to unravel...

A conman always has a bag of tricks, ready to fool the unsuspecting, and almost everyone is unsuspecting until they get taken. When that happens, they turn to Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, to recover their money and what?s left of their dignity, and perhaps even to save their lives. When one such case leaves Sabina Carpenter the only witness to a murder, the family of the culprit vows to stop at nothing to keep her silent....

In response to a string of gold thefts in a Mother Lode mine, Quincannon goes undercover as a newly-hired miner to identify and capture the men responsible. Meanwhile, Sabina finds herself not only making plans for her and Quincannon?s wedding, but also investigating both an audacious real estate scam and an abusive young man's villainous secret.