Victorian San Francisco Mystery Series

In this sequel to Maids of Misfortune, it is the fall of 1879, and when the young San Francisco widow, Annie Fuller, is asked to investigate a fraudulent trance medium, she comes to a troubling realization. Despite Annie’s growing financial success as the clairvoyant Madam Sibyl, she feels increasingly guilty about the fact she doesn't believe in the astrology and palmistry her clients think are the basis for her advice. Kathleen Hennessey, Annie’s young maid, has a plan. Just like the Pinkerton detectives she has read about in the dime novels, she is determined to assist her mistress in her investigations. Nate Dawson, up-and-coming San Francisco lawyer, faces a dilemma. He wants to marry the unconventional Annie Fuller, but he doesn't feel he can reveal his true feelings until he has a way to make enough money to support her. With Kathleen and Nate Dawson’s help, Annie delves into the intriguing world of 19th century spiritualism, encountering true believers and naïve dupes, clever frauds and unexplained supernatural phenomena, and she soon finds there are as many secrets as there are spirits swirling around the séance table. Some of those secrets will threaten the foundation of her career as Madam Sibyl and the future of her relationship with Nate Dawson, and, in time, they will threaten her very life itself.

It’s the summer of 1879, and Annie Fuller, a young San Francisco widow, is in trouble. Annie’s husband squandered her fortune before committing suicide five years earlier, and one of his creditors is now threatening to take the boardinghouse she owns to pay off a debt. Annie Fuller also possesses a secret. She supplements her income by giving domestic and business advice as Madam Sibyl, one of San Francisco’s most exclusive clairvoyants, and one of Madam Sibyl’s clients, Matthew Voss, has died. The police believe his death was suicide brought upon by bankruptcy, but Annie believes Voss has been murdered and that his assets have been stolen. Nate Dawson wrestles with a difficult decision. As the Voss family lawyer, he would love to prove that Matthew Voss didn't leave his grieving family destitute. But that would mean working with Annie Fuller, a woman who alternatively attracts and infuriates him as she shatters every notion he ever had of proper ladylike behavior. Sparks fly as Anne and Nate pursue the truth about the murder of Matthew Voss in this light-hearted, cozy historical mystery set in the foggy, gas-lit world of Victorian San Francisco. Maids of Misfortuneis the first book in M. Louisa Locke’s USA Today bestselling Victorian San Francisco mystery series, followed by Uneasy Spirits, Bloody Lessons, Deadly Proof, Pilfered Promises, and Scholarly Pursuits. Locke’s shorter works, found in Victorian San Francisco Stories and Victorian San Francisco Novellas, feature minor characters from the series.

In Bloody Lessons, the third book in the USA Today bestselling Victorian San Francisco mystery series, it's the winter of 1880, and the public school teachers of San Francisco are under attack: their salaries slashed and their competency and morals questioned in a series of poison pen letters.  Annie Fuller, the reluctant clairvoyant, has been called in to investigate by Nate Dawson, her lawyer beau, and the case becomes personal when they discover that Nate's sister Laura may be one of the teachers being targeted. In this historical mystery, readers will find the same blend of a cozy mystery and romantic suspense that they found in Locke’s Maids of Misfortune and Uneasy Spirits. However, if new to this series, they will still enjoy spending time with the lively residents of Annie Fuller's O’Farrell Street boardinghouse and visiting San Francisco when Golden Gate Park was filled with horse-drawn carriages, politics were controlled by saloon-keepers, and kisses were stolen under gaslight.  Bloody Lessons is followed by Deadly Proof, Pilfered Promises, and Scholarly Pursuits and Locke’s shorter works, found in Victorian San Francisco Stories and Victorian San Francisco Novellas, feature minor characters from the series.

It is November of 1880, and the future looks promising for Annie and Nate Dawson. Nate’s law practice is taking off. Annie has made the transition from pretend clairvoyant to a successful financial consultant, and as a couple, they are looking forward to spending their first Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays together. For Robert Livingston, the owner San Francisco’s newest grand emporium, the holidays are shaping up to be a dismal failure if he can’t figure out how to stop whoever is stealing from his department store, the Silver Strike Bazaar. When he hires the Dawsons to investigate, Annie and Nate discover that behind the doors of Livingston’s “Palace of Plenty,” nothing is quite what it seems. Pilfered Promises, by USA Today bestselling author, M. Louisa Locke, is the fifth full-length historical mystery in the cozy Victorian San Francisco mystery series featuring Annie and Nate Dawson and their friends and family in the O’Farrell Street boarding house. Locke’s shorter works, found in Victorian San Francisco Stories and Victorian San Francisco Novellas, feature minor characters from the series.

First Place Winner of the 2018 Chanticleer Mystery and Mayhem Historical Mystery Award and fourth book in the USA Today bestselling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. It’s the summer of 1880, and once again the lovely and inquisitive businesswoman, Annie Fuller, is helping San Francisco lawyer and fiancé, Nate Dawson, with a troublesome case. Nate’s client, a female typesetter accused of murdering her boss, refuses to help in her own defense. Complicating matters, Nate’s sister Laura insists on getting involved in the potentially dangerous investigation, while Laura’s friend Seth Timmons, troubled Civil War veteran, finds himself a witness for the prosecution.  Will Nate be able to win his first big case? Will Laura and Seth find some way of remaining friends? And finally, will Annie and Nate’s upcoming nuptials be derailed by their attempts to track down a killer? Old friends and new readers alike will enjoy Deadly Proof, this fourth installment of the cozy, historical mystery series that blends light-hearted romance and suspense, while examining the lives of late 19th century women who worked in the printing trades. Deadly Proof is followed by Pilfered Promises and Scholarly Pursuits, and Locke’s shorter works, found in Victorian San Francisco Stories and Victorian San Francisco Novellas, feature minor characters from the series.

“Oh what a tangled web we weave. When first we practice to deceive.” –Marmion, Sir Walter Scott It is San Francisco in the summer of 1882, and Annie and Nate Dawson have finally found a good balance between the demands of family and work. Nate has an interesting legal case defending a young woman who has been left out of her mother’s will. Annie is looking into whether the financial difficulties facing the Potrero Woolen Mills are caused by bad management or bad luck. For her own reasons, Biddy O’Malley is eager to help Annie with her investigation. What none of the three of them could anticipate was how secrets and unexpected entanglements would complicate their search for the truth.  Entangled Threads is the eighth full-length novel in the USA Today best-selling author’s Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. However, it can be read as a stand-alone by anyone who enjoys cozy historical mysteries with an amateur female sleuth. 

Annie has a problem. She has a beautiful child, a loving husband, a well-run boardinghouse with a supportive circle of friends and family, but she’s feeling restless and unhappy. Dr. Charlotte Brown, the doctor who delivered Annie’s baby, has a different problem. The Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children, the clinic and hospital she co-founded, is being threatened by financial and legal difficulties caused by the mysterious illness of a former patient. When Annie takes up the challenge to help Dr. Brown and the dispensary, she will discover that getting back into the business of investigating crimes is exactly the remedy she requires. Lethal Remedies is the seventh novel in the cozy, historical, Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and comes after Scholarly Pursuits.

“Something is rotten in the state of Berkeley” --1881 Blue and Gold Yearbook, University of California: Berkeley   In Scholarly Pursuits, the sixth full-length novel in the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco mystery series, Locke explores life on the University of California: Berkeley campus in 1881, where Laura and her friends face the remarkably modern problems of fraternity hazings, fraught romantic relationships, and fractious faculty politics.   While Annie and Nate Dawson and friends and family in the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse await a blessed event, Laura Dawson finds herself investigating why a young Berkeley student dropped out of school in the fall of 1880.  No one, including her friend Seth Timmons, thinks this is a good idea, since she is juggling a full course load with a part-time job, but she can’t let the question of what happened to her friend go unanswered. Not when it means that other young women might be in danger.  This cozy historical mystery of romantic suspense is set in the period immediately after the fifth book in the series, Pilfered Promises, and two novellas, Kathleen Catches a Killer and Dandy Delivers.  However, it can be read as a stand-alone.

This collection brings together three novellas by USA Today bestselling author, M. Louisa Locke: Violet Vanquishes a Villain, Katherine Catches a Killer, and Dandy Delivers. These shorter works contain the light romance, humor, and suspense of the novels in her cozy Victorian San Francisco mystery series and are an excellent introduction to the gas-lit world of late 19th-century San Francisco.   Violet Vanquishes a Villain: In this novella set in August of 1880, Annie and Nate Dawson’s trip down the San Francisco peninsula to San Jose was supposed to be a pleasant romantic interlude and a chance for Annie to get to know Nate’s family better. When the visit takes a serious turn, Annie races to expose a criminal who could ruin a young man’s life, getting help from an unexpected quarter. The events in Violet Vanquishes a Villain come right after Deadly Proof, the fourth book in Locke’s Victorian San Francisco mystery series.   Kathleen Catches a Killer: As 1880 comes to a close, the O'Farrell Street boardinghouse servant, Kathleen Hennessey, expects to spend a quiet week while her employers, amateur sleuths Annie and Nate Dawson, are off spending the Christmas holidays with Nate's family. However, when she agrees to help out one of her friends, Kathleen discovers that a simple case of a servant being dismissed without notice has turned into a complicated and dangerous puzzle that she is determined to solve. The events in Kathleen Catches a Killer come right between those in Pilfered Promises and the third novella in this collection, Dandy Delivers.   Dandy Delivers: It’s January, 1881, and while the grown-ups in Annie and Nate Dawson’s San Francisco O’Farrell Street boardinghouse are busy with their own affairs, two boys and a dog find their own adventure. Ian Hennessey, a poor boy from South of Market, who is trying to shoulder a man’s responsibilities, gets in trouble, and his best friend, Jamie Hewitt, does what he can to help. But it is Jamie’s young Boston Terrier, Dandy, who saves the day.  

This is a collection of four short stories by USA Today bestselling author, M. Louisa Locke, set in the gas-lit world of Victorian San Francisco. Madam Sibyl’s First Client was written specifically for this collection and it finds Annie Fuller, the young widowed boardinghouse keeper, just starting her career as a pretend clairvoyant. In Dandy Detects, the Boston Terrier that lives in Annie Fuller’s boardinghouse helps uncover a crime, and in The Misses Moffet Mend a Marriage, Annie’s two elderly boarders use their dressmaking skills to avert a domestic tragedy. Finally, in Mr. Wong Rights a Wrong, a Chinese manservant introduced in Maids of Misfortune, the first book in Locke’s historical mystery series, makes another appearance and helps Annie Fuller solve a serious problem. As a bonus, there is an essay, Historical Tidbits, which provides insight into the historical research that went into these stories.   This collection can be read as an introduction or a companion to the full-length novels in the cozy Victorian San Francisco Mystery series, permitting some of the most beloved minor characters of that series to have some fun by taking center stage.

Join Annie Fuller, widowed boardinghouse owner, and Nate Dawson, local lawyer, as they investigate their first crimes in the first four books in the romantic and suspenseful Victorian San Francisco Mystery series: Maids of Misfortune, Uneasy Spirits, Bloody Lessons, and Deadly Proof. Maids of Misfortune: Annie Fuller is a young widow who supplements her income by giving financial and domestic advice as Madam Sibyl. When one of Madam Sibyl’s clients dies in mysterious circumstances, Annie goes undercover as a domestic servant to find out the truth about his death. Against his better judgment, Nate Dawson, the Voss family lawyer, finds himself drawn into helping in her investigations, alternatively fascinated and frustrated by Annie’s independent nature. Uneasy Spirits: Annie Fuller and Nate Dawson delve into the world of 19th century Spiritualism in order to expose a fraudulent trance medium. They will soon find there are as many secrets as there are spirits swirling around the séance table and some of those secrets will threaten the foundation of Annie’s career as Madam Sibyl and the future of her relationship with Nate Dawson, and, in time, they will threaten her very life itself. Bloody Lessons: Annie Fuller tries to find out who has been sending poison pen letters to tarnish the reputations of San Francisco public school teachers. The case becomes personal when she discovers Nate's sister may be one of the teachers being targeted. Deadly Proof (first place winner of Chanticleer’s 2018 Mystery and Mayhem historical mystery award.) Annie helps her fiancé, Nate Dawson, with a troubling case—defending a female typesetter who is accused of killing her employer. Complicating matters, Nate’s sister Laura decides to take the investigation into her own hands.

Annie and Nate Dawson, joined by family and friends from the O’Farrell Street boardinghouse, investigate crimes in books 5-7 of the romantic and suspenseful Victorian San Francisco Mystery series. This boxed set includes Pilfered Promises, Scholarly Pursuits, and Lethal Remedies. Pilfered Promises: The future looks promising for Annie and Nate Dawson. Nate’s law practice is taking off, Annie has made the transition from pretend clairvoyant to a successful financial consultant, and they are looking forward to spending their first Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays together. Then Robert Livingston, the owner of the Silver Strike Bazaar, hires them to figure out who is stealing from him, and they discover that behind the doors of his “Palace of Plenty,” nothing is quite what it seems. Scholarly Pursuits: While Annie and Nate Dawson await a blessed event, Nate’s sister, Laura, who is attending the new university across the bay, encounters fraternity hazings, fraught romantic relationships, and fractious faculty politics as she investigates what caused the death of a young Berkeley co-ed. “Something is rotten in the state of Berkeley”--1881 University of California Blue and Gold Yearbook. Lethal Remedies: Annie has a beautiful child, a loving husband, and a well-run boardinghouse, but she’s feeling restless and unhappy. When she is hired to solve the financial and legal difficulties facing the Pacific Dispensary for Women and Children, San Francisco’s first female run clinic, she finds that getting back into the business of investigating crimes is exactly the remedy she requires.