Click review title to read full review

"This entertaining historical mystery will keep you guessing until the end."
Reviewed by Becky Rotz
Courtesy Old Book Barn Gazette
Posted April 9, 2003

In 1870s Denver City, it isn't ladylike, or even accepted, for a person of the female gender to be a private investigator. But when Josephine "Joby" Sawyer's father meets his maker, what else is she to do? Since no one knows he's passed on, she'll just keep the pretense that Read more...

"An upbeat historical mystery"
Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted April 10, 2003

In Denver City, Joby Sawyer runs a detective agency, an unheard of occupation for a female in the late nineteenth century. To hide her gender in plain sight, Joby tells her clients that she is just an agent for her father, a former Deputy US Marshall, who is away Read more...

Suzann Ledbetter brings her unparalleled storytelling talents to a new mystery series in which one engaging heroine sets out to tame the Wild West with a woman's touch...

Summary

"The simple truth is, I was born clever...." So says spirited young Denver City detective Joby (Josephine Beckworth) Sawyer—and she isn't bragging. With a whip-sharp mind, self-taught expertise in biology, herbology, chemistry, criminality, and legal action, Joby can pretty much get her man. But there's one still hanging on the line: her devoted policeman beau, Jack O'Shaughnessy. In Joby's line of work, murder and mayhem come before matrimony. And with two new cases to crack, her wedding gown can wait.

For now Joby has to get the goods on a no-good abusive husband so a wealthy wife can get out with her fortune and her features intact. Then, a high-class jewel thief goes from larceny to murder as a woman is found strangled with her pearl necklace. Against Jack's wishes, Joby takes a crack at the case with the help of her mentor, Won Li. Determined to prove she's as good an investigator as any man, Joby must use both her brains and her beauty to catch a thief—before he kills again.