Jane Smiley – A Dangerous Business

From Jane Smiley, the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling author of A Thousand Acres comes A Dangerous Business a rollicking murder mystery set in Gold Rush California, as two young prostitutes follow a trail of missing girls.
Eliza and Jean are determined not just to survive, but to find their way in a lawless town on the fringes of the Wild West — a bewitching combination of beauty and danger — as what will become the Civil War looms on the horizon. As Mrs. Parks says, “Everyone knows that this is a dangerous business, but between you and me, being a woman is a dangerous business, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise …”