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 are not difficult: Wrixton, a wealthy banker, has met his extortionist's first demand, but the order to pay another $5,000 is too much to face. The banker's real problem is something he doesn't want to reveal. That was fine with the detective, and when he was informed that some private letters were involved and Wrixton absolutely needed them back, there was nothing more Quincannon needed in the way of background. As with so many of San Francisco's elite, the bedroom doors never seemed to stay shut.

That was the easy part; far more difficult was the matter of the dead courier, murdered most foully in a locked room within a locked room, creating a trail that will take John Quincannon through most of San Francisco's less savory places and end with a riverboat trip that is anything but a relaxing cruise.

The Dangerous Ladies Affair is the next thrilling installment in this charming historical mystery series from MWA Grand Masters Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini.

The Carpenter and Quincannon Mysteries:
#1 The Bughouse Affair
#2 The Spook Lights Affair
#3 The Body Snatchers Affair
#4 The Plague of Thieves Affair
#5 The Dangerous Ladies Affair
#6 The Bags of Tricks Affair

MARCIA MULLER is the New York Times bestselling creator of private investigator Sharon McCone. The author of more than thirty-five novels, Muller received the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award in 2005. She lives in northern California with her husband, the crime novelist Bill Pronzini.

BILL PRONZINI's novel Snowbound received the Grand Prix de la Littérature Policière as the best crime novel published in France in 1988. A Wasteland of Strangers was nominated for best crime novel of 1997 by both the Mystery Writers of America and the International Crime Writers Association. In addition to six Edgar Award nominations and one win for A Wasteland of Strangers, Pronzini has received three Shamus Awards, two for best novel and the Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also the author of the Nameless Detective novels, the longest-running private investigator series currently in print, which includes the award-winning entries Hoodwink and Boobytrap. He lives in northern California with his wife, the crime novelist Marcia Muller.