Silk Train Murder A Mystery of the Klondike

At the turn of the last century, while thousands of hopefuls scrambled to find Klondike gold, sleek clipper ships carried a fortune in silk from the Orient to Vancouver. Silk, more expensive than gold, was insured by the hour and rushed across the continent to New York in specially designed trains. These silk trains quickly became the targets of every crook between Vancouver and New York. John Lansdowne Granville, gentleman adventurer, having tried and failed to find a fortune in the Klondike, takes a job guarding the silk trains, along with his friend and fellow gold-seeker Sam Scott. On Granville's first day on the job, he and Scott foil a sabotage attempt. On the second day, they discover the body of gangster Clive Jackson. No sooner have they reported the dead man to the police than Scott is arrested for the murder. Granville quickly discovers that the police have no other suspects; Scott had several altercations with the dead man and owed him money. And Scott? He isn't talking, not even to Granville. Granville is determined to get Scott out of jail, but neither the police nor Scott is cooperating. He must somehow uncover a killer in a frontier town where he knows no one. The trail to find Jackson's killer leads him to glamorous fan dancers, crime bosses, an enemy from Klondike days, a former Oxford schoolmate, an ambitious young reporter, and a pair of Dupont Street prostitutes. Can Granville sort out silk trains, smunggling rings, opium dealres, houses of ill repute, power struggles, blackmail, and betrayal in time to trap a killer and save his friend?Rowse, Sharon is the author of 'Silk Train Murder A Mystery of the Klondike', published 2007 under ISBN 9780786719464 and ISBN 078671946X.