Marian J. A. Jackson Book order

Houdini, bound in chains and submerged in water, could defy nature and hold his breath long enough to escape. Not so an ordinary seaman. The unfortunate fellow had seen too much while laying in provisions aboard The Seascape, the Tibaults’ luxury yacht. Those intent upon preserving their secret did not hesitate to silence him with a blow to the head and, binding his ankles with chains not unlike those used by the great escape artist, toss him overboard. Submerged in the Caribbean, he regained consciousness. But he panicked. Feeling the weight upon his legs, he gasped for air. His death was deemed an accident—no reason to delay departure—Malcolm Tibault had money enough to bribe the officials and compensate the family—so as Miss Abigail Patience Danforth, and Houdini, board The Seascape in Panama to sail to New Orleans they are unaware of the drowning. But when Malcolm Tibault himself dies, and his body is committed to the deep before it can be examined for poison, it is Miss Danforth who suspects the worst and captures the murderer.

Fresh from her heady success at retrieving the Punjats ruby for the Prince of Wales, Miss Abigail Patience Danforth and her entourage are speeding toward San Francisco in a private railroad car when their journey is interrupted by train robbers. They murder her new friend, and steal her beloved horse, Crosspatches, along with Marshal Bill Tilghmans foundation sirean Arabian, priceless as a monarchs pearl.Far from the familiar boulevards of London and New York where she had schooled herself in the infant science of detection, Miss Danforth disdains the famous lawmans old-fashioned, slow methods of tracking fugitives across the vast wilderness that was then the Oklahoma Territory and creates her own her only clue, the killers love of chocolate.

Encouraged by Miss Danforth's decision to become the world's first female consulting detective, her chaperone, Maude Cunningham, begs Abigail to find the killer who gunned down her beloved fiancé on the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown. Eager to help her friend and to tackle a new and challenging case, Abigail recalls the advice of her mentor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and begins the process of logical detection, unaware that sinister forces, desperate to stop her, are already watching her and anticipating her every move.Disguised as a gentleman, with the young writer Jack London as her guide, Miss Danforth leaves the safety of her wealthy hostess's Nob Hill mansion to interview the sleazy denizens of the Barbary Coast, determined to solve the crime by unveiling the secrets hidden in The Cat's Eye.