Ambrose Bierce and the One-Eyed Jacks

Ambrose G. ("Almighty God") Bierce, San Francisco's legendary newspaperman and sometime-sleuth, is hardly surprised to be consulted by William Randolph Hearst when the latter's mistress finds herself photographically compromised. But in the rough 1890s Bay Area streets, Hearst's isn't the only case on the boil. Bierce and his sidekick Tom Redmond follow a trail of murder that leads from a sinister British yachtsman to a photographer of female flesh, via the beauty queen of the...
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Ambrose G. ("Almighty God") Bierce, San Francisco's legendary newspaperman and sometime-sleuth, is hardly surprised to be consulted by William Randolph Hearst when the latter's mistress finds herself photographically compromised. But in the rough 1890s Bay Area streets, Hearst's isn't the only case on the boil. Bierce and his sidekick Tom Redmond follow a trail of murder that leads from a sinister British yachtsman to a photographer of female flesh, via the beauty queen of the Portuguese Pentecostal festival; white slavers; a slave ship and the Chinese girls who have been imported on it; tong hit men; Dionysian revels; and a shocking photography ring. Bierce's unraveling of it all sheds a blinding light on parental guilt and fin-de-siécle morality. The third in Hall's Ambrose Bierce series, this is a must-have for fans of Caleb Carr's The Alienist, E. L. Doctorow's The Waterworks, and all historical adventures.