by Gary Krist
First published 2025
On November 3, 1870, Laura D. Fair steps from the shadows aboard the ferryboat El Capitan as it pulls into San Francisco Bay. She draws a pistol from beneath her black veil and fires a single bullet into the chest of A. P. Crittenden, who sits with his wife and children. "I did it and I don't deny it," Fair declares upon arrest. "He ruined both myself and my daughter." Fair had carried on an affair with the married Crittenden for years, believing his promises to leave his family. The murder trial becomes a national sensation, forcing Americans still reeling from the Civil War to confront questions about women's roles, family sanctity, and acceptable behavior. The case transforms San Francisco itself, a city desperate to escape its Wild West past and claim respectability. As Fair's fate hangs in the balance, her story exposes the tensions between old and new America.
Genres: american-fiction, historical-fiction, american, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: San Francisco, San Francisco Bay
Period: 1870
673 pages · Hardcover · Thorndike Press Large Print
Content warnings: murder, violence