The Golden Gate
'Historical detective noir at its best' Janice Hallett
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA BEST FIRST NOVEL EDGAR 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION ILP JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER 2024
SHORTLISED FOR THE ITW THRILLER AWARDS BEST FIRST NOVEL 2024
SHORTLISTED FOR THE HISTORICAL WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DEBUT CROWN 2024
'An epic, devastating, majestic mystery. Clever, richly imagined and outright thrilling' Chris Whitaker
Berkeley, California 1944: A former presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms at the opulent Claremont Hotel. A rich industrialist, Walter Wilkinson could have been targeted by any number of adversaries. But Detective Al Sullivan's investigation brings up the spectre of another tragedy at the Claremont ten years earlier: the death of seven-year-old Iris Stafford, a member of the wealthy and influential Bainbridge family. Some say she haunts the Claremont still.
The many threads of the case keep leading Sullivan back to the three remaining Bainbridge heiresses, now adults: Iris's sister, Isabella, and her cousins Cassie and Nicole. Determined not to let anything distract him from the truth - not the powerful influence of Bainbridges' grandmother, or the political aspirations of Berkeley's district attorney, or the interest of Chinese first lady Madame Chiang Kai-Shek - Sullivan follows his investigation to its devastating conclusion.
Chua's page-turning debut brings to life a historical era rife with turbulent social forces and ground-breaking forensic advances, when access to power, and therefore justice, hinged on gender, race and class.
'Riveting' Daily Mail
'Intriguing' Sunday Times
'Vividly intoxicating' Janice Hallett
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The thrilling fiction debut from Yale law professor Chua (World on Fire) anchors a mind-bending murder mystery in the social turbulence of 1944 Berkeley, Calif. A report of gunfire brings police detective Al Sullivan to room 604 of the luxurious Claremont hotel. Inside, he finds William Wilkinson, a rich industrialist with political aspirations, unharmed. Everything—save the bullet hole in the wall—seems perfectly normal. When a hotel employee tells Wilkinson, "We thought you'd been murdered," he enigmatically replies, "I have been." A few hours later, Wilkinson is, indeed, found dead, and Sullivan launches an official investigation. Early evidence points to the three beautiful granddaughters of wealthy socialite Genevieve Hopkins Bainbridge, whose youngest sister, Iris, happened to be murdered in the same hotel room a decade earlier. The story alternates between Genevieve's deposition and detective Sullivan's first-person narration, with sly, Rashomon-style changes in interpretation accompanying each shift in perspective. Chua seeds the novel with fascinating nuggets of California history and real-life figures, including Margaret Chung, the first Chinese woman to become a physician in the United States. The result is a richly satisfying historical mystery that draws on its setting for more than mere atmosphere.
