Customer Reviews

Emperor Norton's Ghost: A Fremont Jones Mystery

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Thououghly delightful;the best yet in a series which keeps getting better and better. As a native San Franciscan whose grandmother lived through the 1907 earthquake, the descriptions in the book ring true. The heroine, investigator, Fremont Jones is refreshingly original. The plot is fast moving and the story peopled with memorable secondary characters. I look forward to more from the talented Ms.Day and the delightful Ms.Jones and company.

I am not really a mystery fan but was attracted to this book by it's title. As an avid student of San Francisco history I expected I might enjoy it, if only to pick apart all the historical inaccuracies! Was I ever wrong! Dianne Day obviously has done her research as her version of pre-earthquake San Francisco is right on! Not only was it accurate but it actually makes the period come alive. She gets the big things right, and the little things as well. For those who love mysteries and San Francisco this book is a must read. I enjoyed seeing the world I had read about for so many years brought to life, and in such refreshing ways. I look forward to reading all of the Fremont Jones Mysteries!

Three years have passed since the 1906 earthquake and its aftermath nearly destroyed San Francisco. However, the city has made a remarkable recovery in its efforts to be rebuilt. Private investigators Freemont Jones and her lover Michael Archer return to their adopted home to live and work together. Freemont is an odd woman. Rarely does one see such an independent female willing to ignore society by not marrying the man she lives with and who prefers working in a dangerous occupation.

Freemont accompanies her only female friend, Frances McFadden, wife of a wealthy but abusive businessman, to a seance. When the medium invites Frances to a private session, Freemont also comes. However, when they arrive at the medium's home, they find the woman dead. Freemont starts an investigation that leads her into an ethereal world of charlatans, con artists, and one killer whose target is the city by the bay's most renowned clairvoyants.

This fourth entry in the Freemont Jones historical mysteries is the best novel in a series that already boasts three superb tales, including a Macavityy Award winner. Dianne Day brilliantly fleshes out her characters so that the audience can feel for them while understanding their motivations. The cadence and vocabulary of the dialog matches the vernacular of the era while the resiliency of the San Francisco residents adds much depth to the novel. The who-done-it is complex and will also sustain reader interest. EMPEROR NORTON'S GHOST contains enough elements from different genres to appeal to a wide range of readers, including those who love mystery, historical, and mainstream novels.

Harriet Klausner

This is another marvelous entry in the Fremont Jones series. Once again the author creates a full sense of place, and her main characters continue to develop into even more interesting people. This time the story is about psychic phenomena and the people who pursue the paranormal. It's nice that the author does NOT make fun of either the people or the pursuit! A tension-filled and interesting twist on murder and familial abuse.

Ms. Day does it again! I just love this series. I want to thank the author, Dianne Day for all the entertainment and pleasure she has given me. Ms. Day works hard to bring us a very accurate history in her settings. In this one, she has brought a little known period of America's history to the front, and done an excellent job with it. She also tackels a most modern issue in this one, with the problems of the times this book is set in. I'm so glad that Fremont and Michael are so progressive thinking. If they weren't I would have hated them and this book. But I loved the book. I hope you read it and enjoy it as much as I did.

I enjoy reading books in a series about mysteries, particularly if the protagonist is a character that appeals to me. So it is with Fremont Jones, the intrepid heroine from San Francisco in the time of the Great Quake. The stories are light and breezy, with enough mystery in them to hold my interest from beginning to end. They're fun to read, and don't involve a lot of effort. Good books to relax the mind with in between ones of more weight and importance.

We've all heard the expression "Keeping up with the Joneses"...well from one Jones about another one, I love Fremont! I had the opportunity to read Diane Day's first three novels sequentially within a short period of time and came to respect and enjoy Fremont's adventures.

It isn't until this novel that she really becomes her own person, not a stale copy of the century's earliest feminists. Although I felt that the end may have come together much too nicely, (what real buff likes a clean tight ending) I felt there were enough twists and turns to keep me thinking about more than one suspect at a time.

I am really looking forward to reading Death Train.

Emperor Norton's Ghost was well written and quite entertaining... all the way up to the final chapter, which wrapped everything up quite rapidly and rather weakly, and with what appeared to be a giant leap of intuition on the part of the main character, Fremont. To me, a good mystery story is littered with clues which can help a savvy reader to solve said mystery. The skill of a mystery writer lies in the peppering of the story with these clues without allowing the reader to determine whodunit before the denouement. The one clue discovered by Fremont which connects the victims to the killer is tenuous at best, and the conclusion is, well, rather vague and hasty, rather a disappointment, given how great the rest of the book was.

Fremont and her partner in life and business, Michael Kossoff are now running an investigative business, J & K and sort of sharing a duplex with the office on the ground floor. Their former policeman friend Wish Stephenson is working for them. Fremont has made friend who doesn't care for her unusual lifestyle, Frances McFadden. Frances is an abused wife with an interest in Spiritualism. While at a seance with Fremont, she finds herself taken over by a spirit. The medium orders her out of the building, but later asks for a visit. Fremont and Frances arrive at her house to find her murdered and very recently. Fremont of course wants to investigate and to save her friend, but Michael counsels her to be cautious. In the midst of all this, Fremont's father is coming for a visit without his despised wife Augusta. Michael tactfully leaves town. Another medium is also murdered and Fremont wonders if it is a trend and if Frances' brutal husband is involve.

The two plotlines of this novel blend beautifully. The murder mystery was a little more difficult than most, maybe because I was distracted by Fremont's reunion with her father. This is the best of the series so far.

For the longest time, I couldn't figure out in what period this book was set. Stilted language that I guess is supposed to sound like the language of the early 1900s. References to things that happened during that period, but the main character seemed too modern.

I live in the San Francisco Bay area, am familiar with "Emperor Norton", and the spiritualist movement, so I was prepared to like this book.

It's difficult to articulate exactly what I didn't like about it - past my initial confusion, it turned out to be less than interesting. This was my first Dianne Day book and I'm not sure I'm willing to take a chance with another.