Silver Rush Mystery Series

Book 6

It's autumn of 1881, and Inez Stannert, still the co-owner of Leadville, Colorado's Silver Queen saloon, is settled in San Francisco with her young ward, Antonia Gizzi. Inez has turned her business talents to managing a music store, hoping to eventually become an equal partner in the enterprise with the store's owner, a celebrated local violinist. Inez's carefully constructed life for herself and Antonia threatens to tumble about her ears when the badly beaten body of a young musician washes up on the filthy banks of San Francisco's Mission Creek canal. Inez and Antonia become entangled in the mystery of his death when the musician turns out to have ties to Leadville, ties that threaten to expose Inez's notorious past. And they aren't the only ones searching for answers. Wolter Roeland de Bruijn, ''finder of the lost, '' has also been tasked with ferreting out the perpetrators and dispensing justice in its most final form. Leadville's leading madam Frisco Flo, an unwilling visitor to the city with a Leadville millionaire, is on the hook as well, having injudiciously financed the young musician's journey to San Francisco in the first place. Time grows short as Inez and the others uncover long-hidden secrets and unsettled scores. With lives and reputations on the line, the tempo rises until the investigation's final, dying note

Leaden Skies

by Ann Parker

Published 5 June 2009

Silver Lies

by Ann Parker

Published 1 September 2003

The horse brayed and reared. For a moment, Joe saw mount and rider looming over him, an enormous shadow against night-dark clouds. The whip fell again. The horse pawed the air, then leaped forward with a grunt. Joe recoiled in terror. He heard, then felt a bone-crunching snap. And screamed. His leg. Intolerable pain engulfed him like a black avalanche. He tried to grab something, roll away. His fingers closed on ooze and shattered ice. The horse reared again, fighting rein and whip. Hooves plunged down, flashing past Joe's face, crushing his ribs with a sound like dry wood splintering. Joe's last scream was muffled by mud and honky-tonk music. And the piano played on.

Iron Ties

by Ann Parker

Published 30 June 2006

The railroad is coming west, all the way to Leadville and its rich Rocky Mountain mines, not to mention its millionaires. And who is coming to celebrate the arrival of the Denver & Rio Grande but Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States and former commander of the Union armies. Like other residents in the Colorado boomtown this summer of 1880, Inez Stannert regards the news as mixed. With her business partnership in the Silver Queen Saloon shaky and the bonds of family tightening (her husband is still missing and her young son is still back East), Inez doesn't need the lawlessness of Leadville to turn, once again, into murder. But Inez isn't the only one with iron ties to the past. Some folks have wicked memories of the war, others have a stake in the competing railroad lines. And photographer Susan Carothers, Inez's friend, is caught in the deadly crossfire...

Mercury's Rise

by Ann Parker

Published 3 October 2011

Mortal Music

by Ann Parker

Published 27 February 2020

In this next adventure in the award-winning Silver Rush mystery series, pianist and amateur sleuth Inez Stannert must track down a murderer before he silences a famous vocalist—forever...
All Inez Stannert wants for Christmas is for the struggling music store she owns in San Francisco to be a success. When diva Theia Carrington Drake asks Inez to be her accompanist for several high-profile personal appearances, Inez is thrilled. This is the chance she was waiting for—a way to make some extra money and bring her store into the limelight of the city's polite society. She hesitates to dream of what she could do from there—the other female business owners she could help.
But life around the singer is far from pitch perfect. An unknown threat is stalking Theia; her pet bird is found slain, and her signature gown is destroyed. Soon, Inez realizes that a murderer is stalking the city's opera halls, and that it's only a matter of time before Theia is his next victim. She'll have to enlist the help of San Francisco detective Wolter Roeland de Bruijn to solve this mystery of music and uncover the killer before Theia's celebrated voice is silenced—permanently.
When a famous vocalist's life is threatened, sleuth and pianist Inez Stannert will stop at nothing to find an answer to this mystery of music. But will she catch the killer before the music stops?
The critically acclaimed and award-winning Silver Rush mystery series is:Perfect for fans of Rhys Bowen and Sandra DallasFor readers who enjoy historical fiction and Western themed mysteriesFor mystery fans who love a female sleuthOther Titles in the Silver Rush Mysteries Series:
Silver Lies
Iron Ties
Leaden Skies
What Gold Buys
A Dying Note

The Secret in the Wall

by Ann Parker

Published 15 March 2022

Sometimes you can't keep your gown out of the gutter…
Inez Stannert has reinvented herself—again. Fleeing the comfort and wealth of her East Coast upbringing, she became a saloon owner and card sharp in the rough silver boomtown of Leadville, Colorado, always favoring the unconventional path—a difficult road for a woman in the late 1800s.
Then the teenaged daughter of a local prostitute is orphaned by her mother's murder, and Inez steps up to raise the troubled girl as her own. Inez works hard to keep a respectable, loving home for Antonia, carefully crafting their new life in San Francisco. But risk is a seductive friend, difficult to resist. When a skeleton tumbles from the wall of her latest business investment, the police only seem interested in the bag of Civil War-era gold coins that fell out with it. With her trusty derringer tucked in the folds of her gown, Inez uses her street smarts and sheer will to unearth a secret that someone has already killed to keep buried. The more she digs, the muddier and more dangerous things become.
She enlists the help of Walter de Brujin, a local private investigator with whom she shares some history. Though she wants to trust him, she fears that his knowledge of her past, along with her growing attraction to him, may well blow her veneer of respectability to bits—that is, if her dogged pursuit of the truth doesn't kill her first