From the New York Times –bestselling “master of suspense”: A woman’s mysterious past is unearthed during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake (Mary Higgins Clark). Sara Bishop was raised in Chicago, but her heart belongs in San Francisco, where her childhood sweetheart, Ritchie Temple, has moved to pursue a career in architecture. Convinced he feels the same way for her, she hopes his fiancée, the manipulative Judith Renwick, is just a passing fancy. And now Sara has packed her bags to prove it. Sarah’s mother is not only concerned by her daughter’s pursuit of an elusive romance, she’s also scared of the city itself—and the secret she and Sara’s father buried there years ago. Once Sara arrives on the far side of the Golden Gate, she finds herself in the midst of a tantalizing puzzle involving Ritchie, Judith, and Judith’s mysterious brother. She soon discovers a monstrously wicked matriarch nursing a strange and unfathomable vengeance in her Nob Hill mansion. And one fateful morning, when the earth moves and the city is set afire, the pieces of Sara’s past will emerge from the ashes—but will it be too late to save her? A recipient of the Agatha Award for Lifetime Achievement, Phyllis A. Whitney is the acknowledged “Queen of the American gothics” ( The New York Times ).
Author
Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903 – 2008) was an American mystery writer. Rare for her genre, she wrote mysteries for both the juvenile and the adult markets, many of which feature exotic locations. A review in The New York Times once dubbed her "The Queen of the American Gothics". She was born in Japan to American parents and spent her early years in Asia. Whitney wrote more than seventy novels. In 1961, her book The Mystery of the Haunted Pool won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Juvenile novel, and she duplicated the honor in 1964, for The Mystery of the Hidden Hand. In 1988, the MWA gave her a Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement. Whitney died of pneumonia on February 8, 2008, aged 104.
