Fire and Fog (Fremont Jones Mysteries)
by Dianne Day
from Crimeline
"I have something of a wild streak in me" says Fremont Jones, the heroine of Fire and Fog. First seen in The Strange Files of Fremont Jones, she returns here a survivor of the great 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. After rescuing her typewriter from the rubble, Jones goes to work helping out the Red Cross, typing letters in the home of a woman she saved during the tremor, hunting for illegal artifacts and investigating a murder. She even gets kidnapped by a ninja. That might seem like a bit much, but then, who's to say that there were no ninjas back then? Besides, the early 20th century was a busy time, and Fremont Jones is a busy, busy woman. She's also a great sleuth and an irrepressible and enjoyable adventuress.
"With her independent spirit and youthful determination, Miss Jones is virtually invincible," raved The New York Times Book Review upon meeting Dianne Day's spunky and appealing new heroine in her debut, The Strange Files of Fremont Jones. Now Fremont Jones returns, awakened by a terrible rumbling, and nearly crushed by a falling armoire, to find herself in the midst of the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.
In the confusion and devastation that ensues, Fremont volunteers for the Red Cross, and learns to drive an automobile to transport supplies and handsome doctors, sparking romances along the way. Her sleuthing cohort, the elusive Michael Archer, vanishes, leaving Fremont alone to sleuth the mysteries uncovered by the earthquake and to wrestle with her romantic feelings for Michael. A smuggler's cache unearthed by the disaster leads Fremont straight into danger: kidnapped by murderous Ninjas, Fremont must find her way to safety--thwarted at every turn, as even friends become suspect. Alone Fremont picks her way through the menacing ruins of San Francisco and narrowly escapes with her life.
Death Train to Boston (Fremont Jones Mysteries)
by Dianne Day
from Bantam
Autumn 1908 finds Caroline Fremont Jones and her partner in love and work, Michael Kossoff, traveling incognito, riding the rails from San Francisco to Boston. The railroad hired the sleuthing couple to investigate a series of accidents. But before they can solve the mystery, they become victims of the worst mishap yet when their train blows up near Salt Lake City. Was it a callous act of vandalism-or something even more sinister? Michael isn't about to let his injuries slow down his search for answers...or for Fremont, who has not been seen since the accident-dead or alive.
Fortunately, the badly injured Fremont was rescued from the train's wreckage. But her unlikely savior, the leader of a breakaway Mormon sect, has hidden her away in his remote wilderness community. It seems that Melancthon Pratt has big plans for Fremont...not the least of which is for her to become his sixth wife. Now Fremont's only hope is that her genius for artifice will help her devise an escape. That is, unless Michael, shadowed by an old nemesis and a mysterious stranger, can find her before a heartless killer claims both their lives.
The Strange Files of Fremont Jones (Fremont Jones Mysteries)
by Dianne Day
from Crimeline
Brave, resourceful, adventurous Fremont (née Caroline) Jones is a woman ahead of her time. Hungry for independence, she's traded in her conventional life in Boston for a career as a "type-writer" in turn-of-the-century San Francisco. But Fremont soon discovers that her clients aren't always what they appear to be, and that in doing her job she's transcribing her way into a wealth of mystery--and mortal danger....
Dashing lawyer Justin Cameron well-nigh sweeps Fremont Jones off her feet--and into a situation ripe with perilous intrigue. A client meets an untimely death that Fremant suspects is linked to the paper she typed for him, of which she can recall but one small fragment. And her attempts to disentangle reality and imagination in the gothic tales penned by Edgar Allan Partridge--whose demeanor is one of terror under the barest restraint--send her up the rocky California coast on a mission of discovery from which she may not return....
A riveting, atmospheric mix of intrigue and humor introduces a new investigator as cultivated as Sherlock Holmes and as spunky as Kinsey Millhone.
Beacon Street Mourning: A Fremont Jones Mystery
by Dianne Day
from Bantam
Fremont Jones, still mending from her last adventure (Death Train to Boston) is called back from San Francisco to Boston because of her father's illness. When Fremont arrives to find him hovering near death, her dislike of her stepmother, Augusta, soon blooms into suspicion about Augusta's role in Leonard's mysterious "wasting" disease. Their strained relationship becomes even more difficult when Fremont insists that Leonard be moved immediately to a hospital. Fremont is so encouraged by her father's progress and so willing to make him happy that, despite her feminist principles, she acquiesces to his wish that she marry her lover Michael, the intriguing Russian émigré who is also her partner in a California detective agency. But then Leonard dies, supposedly of a heart attack. Fremont is certain he's been poisoned, but when Augusta too dies--shot to death--it becomes clear there is more than one adversary for the plucky young woman to contend with, and she sets out to solve the mystery.
Fremont Jones is an intriguing character, a Boston Brahmin and bluestocking whose New England roots are strong and deep and whose independence and autonomy are often in conflict with her love for Michael as well as with the cultural mores and values of her time and place. Author Dianne Day gets the period details down perfectly and adds to the picture of Fremont Jones that has emerged from her previous books featuring this strong-willed, sexy, and consistently interesting heroine. The pace is slow, but both the development of character and the atmosphere Day creates make that a plus rather than a minus. --Jane Adams
Five years ago Caroline Fremont Jones fled the proper world of her native Boston for the independent life of a California private detective. But now, in the winter of 1909, she is grief-stricken to learn of her father’s grave illness.
Still hampered by half-healed injuries from her last adventure — but buoyed by her ever-deepening affection for her partner in love and work, Michael Kossoff — Fremont leaves sunny San Francisco for the ice-edged air and handsome mansions of Beacon Street.
Her visit has scarcely begun when her father, suffering from a malady not even his doctor can diagnose, takes a turn for the better ... only to die suddenly in the middle of the night. Fremont is certain her odious stepmother, Augusta, somehow caused her father’s death. But how? And did she have an accomplice?
Michael questions Fremont’s suspicions ... until an exotic piece of evidence and a second, violent death trigger an investigation that draws upon childhood memories and fears to become Fremont’s most personal one yet.
The Bohemian Murders (Fremont Jones Mysteries)
by Dianne Day
from Crimeline
Forced to leave San Francisco after the devastating earthquake of 1906, Fremont (née Caroline) Jones follows her heart to the bohemian beach community of Carmel-by-the-Sea.  She is eager to be reunited with her elusive suitor, retired spymaster Michael Archer, but finds him mysteriously metamorphosed into Misha--otherwise occupied and decidedly unavailable for sleuthing.  But the irrepressible Fremont Jones has her pride, and determined to restart her typewriting business part-time, she signs on as temporary keeper of the Point Pinos Lighthouse.
She has barely settled in to her watch when a velvet-clad corpse washes in on the tide--and Fremont is off on a new and ultimately life-threatening quest.  Starting with the free-spirited artists of Carmel, she searches for clues to the identity of the dead woman and uncovers a community filled with intrigue, violence, and plenty of motives for murder.  When Fremont is attacked and robbed, her lighthouse torched, and the artist helping her turns up missing, she realizes she is perilously close to the truth.  And that the next body to drift in on the tide might well be her own.
Emperor Norton's Ghost (Fremont Jones Mysteries)
by Dianne Day
from Bantam
Like all good historical mysteries, Dianne Day's books about a feisty young woman from Boston named Fremont Jones who winds up solving crimes in and around San Francisco in the early 1900s are a delicate balance of odd and exotic period details and characters with motivations we can sympathize with today. The notion that Fremont's lover-partner, a Russian named Michael Kossoff, might be involved in a plot to murder the mad monk Rasputin is made more believable by his endearing habit of bringing home fresh pastries for breakfast. That Fremont's new friend Frances McFadden seems to have summoned up at a seance the spirit of that infamous 19th-century San Francisco character who crowned himself Emperor Norton I of the United States and Defender of Mexico is balanced by the bruises Fremont notices on the battered wife's arms. And descriptions of a determined San Francisco rebuilding itself after the 1905 earthquake remind us of more recent Bay Area disasters. Day writes with wit and energy, and her Fremont Jones is a totally plausible modern woman born a few decades before her time but making the most of that accident of history. The first three books in this laudable series are The Strange Files of Fremont Jones, Fire and Fog, and The Bohemian Murders. --Dick Adler
Caroline Fremont Jones revels in her return to San Francisco, where a new city rises from the ruins of the 1906 earthquake. Even more rewarding is her business partnership and rekindled love with ex-spymaster Michael Archer Kossoff. But their private investigation agency is barely off the ground when Fremont's new friend, lovely but quirky Frances McFadden, becomes their first client--and it's a most troubling case.
The adventurous but skeptical Fremont, lured by Frances to a séance, sees her companion fall into a disturbing trance. Despite the opposition of her powerful, controlling husband, Frances is determined to develop her budding psychic ability. Soon she confides to Fremont that a restless spirit from San Francisco's legendary past has entrusted her with a mission.
But when one of the city's female mediums is murdered, and then another, Fremont's reservations turn to dread. Who has killed these women who wield their own power in the metaphysical world, and why? As Fremont's investigation takes her into the murky depths of spiritualism, she places not only herself, but also her dearest friends in mortal danger.
Emperor Norton's Ghost
by Dianne Day
from Books on Tape
In 1908, in a post earthquake San Francisco, Fremont Jones and Michael Archer have formed the J & K private investigations agency. Committed to being "partners in life and work," it's sometimes difficult for Fremont to separate the two. In fact, its her friendship with a flighty, troubled woman that gets Fremont involved in her first murder investigation. Frances McFadden, besotted with spiritualism, is accompanied by a curious but skeptical Fremont to a seance. Frances' husband, upon finding out about his wife's adventure, punishes Frances in a degrading yet galvanizing way. When two well-known mediums are murdered, Frances discovers her own talent for telepathy and takes a lover. Fremont, bent on proving herself both competent to Michael and grown up to her father, becomes increasingly involved in the investigation and dangerously embroiled in her friend's illicit liaison.
Fire and Fog (2, Fremont Jones series)
It's 1906, and Fremont Jones finds herself in the middle of the San Francisco Earthquake. In the devastation that follows, she volunteers for the Red Cross, learning to drive an automobile to transport supplies (and handsome doctors). Befriending shy, sweet Alice Lasley seems the right thing to do, until Fremont discovers that Alice- and her missing husband- are not what they seem. When someone begins leaving loathsome offerings at her front door, Fremont's efforts to learn the truth entangle her once again with the attractive Michael Archer as she steals through the rubble in pursuit of a killer who would like very much to extinguish her. This is a liberated woman, at her best in a brave new world. "It's Day's light and romantic touch with her spunky heroine and the men in her life that make this series sparkle..." (Booklist)
The Strange Files of Fremont Jones
Six cassettes.
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