It is November of 1880, and the future looks promising for Annie and Nate Dawson. Nate’s law practice is taking off. Annie has made the transition from pretend clairvoyant to a successful financial consultant, and as a couple, they are looking forward to spending their first Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays together.For Robert Livingston, the owner San Francisco’s newest grand emporium, the … emporium, the holidays are shaping up to be a dismal failure if he can’t figure out how to stop whoever is stealing from his department store, the Silver Strike Bazaar. When he hires the Dawsons to investigate, Annie and Nate discover that behind the doors of Livingston’s “Palace of Plenty,” nothing is quite what it seems.
Pilfered Promises, by USA Today bestselling author, M. Louisa Locke, is the fifth full-length historical mystery in the cozy Victorian San Francisco mystery series featuring Annie and Nate Dawson and their friends and family in the O’Farrell Street boarding house. Locke’s shorter works, found in Victorian San Francisco Stories and Victorian San Francisco Novellas, feature minor characters from the series.
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I like the author’s writing style and the setting for the story in San Francisco during the 1880’s. The character of Annie is complex and intriguing.
As with her other San Francisco mysteries, she delivers again! I am never disappointed with the mysteries and the characters I know and love, but when the story ends.
I like this series of books. Fun to read. I like the characters. I think this is the fourth book in this series that I have read. I enjoy it.
I absolutely loved this book!!
Another great book in the series but just as good as a stand alone. I stayed up late to finish reading. Great ending.
This whole series is excellent. Characters are well developed.
Historical mystery set in late 1800. Very interesting how life was. Enjoyable read
I just finished reading…very enjoyable look into the past.
I’am very impressed with this author
Absolutely loved the book
As usual I have read them out of order now I will go back to read how the main characters first met
Having lived in San Francisco for many years it was fun to see the streets listed and know exactly the area they were speaking about
Highly recommend the book and the series
good read
Historical mystery set in Victorian San Francisco.
Excellent series!
It was a bit too long and drawn out – but still good
Love all the lousialocke books
Love this series!
Love the historical centered mystery!
I love every one of her books and I was so happy to discover one I had not read.
A VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS MYSTERY
Pilfered Promises: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery by M. Louisa Locke delivers pretty much what it promises in the title. Readers come away from the reading with a vivid sense of the Christmas shopping season of 1880 on the West coast. It is one of more than dozen works in this series but was the first I encountered. Kudos to the author, in that I had little trouble “jumping in” with the characters and setting, having not read the earlier works—though a time or two, I found it unclear to sort out whose POV the author had switched to. The story takes place in one of the first large department stores of the time—fictional, of course. Locke emerges the reader in this world, giving us a real sense of what these places looked and felt like, especially at Christmas. Our crime solving duo, husband and wife, Nate and Annie, are brought in by the owner of this SF department store to uncover how goods and money are going missing. The pilfering leads of course to murder and the pair end up assisting the police to solve the crime—and save a young girl in the process. I’d count this as a pleasant encounter and enjoyed my trip to a time and place we only see in old movies.
This is a series and I have read all of them. Wish there were more.