The Pearl of Ruby City: A Mystery - Softcover

Harris, Jana

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1504018966 ISBN 13: 9781504018968

Publisher: Open Road Distribution, 2015

Synopsis

The year is 1893, and Pearl Ryan, a young woman with a checkered past, arrives in Ruby City, a silver mining town full of scoundrels—one to which no respectable woman would ever travel. Pearl sets up shop as the town laundress, but is clearly no ordinary charwoman: She is courted by many and the local doctor often solicits her assistance as his nurse. Pearl’s dream is to attend medical school—not a small feat for a woman alone in the Wild West—and hopes that the proceeds from her newly inherited mining claim
will pay for her education.
 
Meanwhile, laundry is her bread and butter. As laundress, however, Pearl is privy to many secrets she’d rather not know. As a student of the healing arts, she recognizes the symptoms of poisoning when she sees them. And as a woman with a past she’d rather keep hidden, she must solve the murders plaguing Ruby City before US marshals arrive.

About this title

About the Author:

Jana Harris teaches creative writing at the University of Washington and at the Writer’s Workshop in Seattle. She is an editor of Switched-on Gutenberg: A Global Poetry Journal, and the author of the memoir Horses Never Lie About Love and the poetry collection You Haven’t Asked About My Wedding or What I Wore: Poems of Courtship on the American Frontier.

From Kirkus Reviews:

The authors second novel (Alaska, 1980) is set in Ruby City, a Washington State mining town, in 1893. Young Pearl Ryan has fled there, escaping the false charge back in New York that she stole her employers diamond necklace. In Ruby City she runs the Laundry by the Lake, helped by Mary Reddawn, a Siwash Indian, and Marys husband, Chin. Saving her earnings for medical school Pearl also assists Doc Stringfellow when the need arises. Theyve been unable to save much-loved Mayor Shaky MacDonald from what the doctor has diagnosed as typhoid. His death is quickly followed by that of Jake Pardee, owner of the gambling hall and Trading Post, killed by a shot in the back. The mayors close friend Dutch Wilhelm is the next to sicken and die, with more mysterious deaths to follow. Pearl is determined to find out whats behind it all, and she succeeds, even as she discovers the betrayals of her own past. Harriss choppy narrative, packed with local color, determinedly eccentric characters, and nasty confrontations, never achieves flow or focus. Best enjoyed by fans of the Old West. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Open Road Distribution
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1504018966
• ISBN 13: 9781504018968
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 322