"You ain't gonna like what I have to tell you, but I'm gonna
tell you anyway. See, my name is Karen Memery, like memory
only spelt with an e, and I'm one of the girls what works in
the Hôtel Mon Cherie on Amity Street. Hôtel has a little hat
over the o like that. It's French, so Beatrice tells me."
Set in the late 19th century--when the city we now call
Seattle Underground was the whole town (and still on the
surface), when airships plied the trade routes, would-be
gold miners were heading to the gold fields of Alaska, and
steam-powered mechanicals stalked the waterfront, Karen is a
young woman on her own, is making the best of her orphaned
state by working in Madame Damnable's high-quality bordello.
Through Karen's eyes we get to know the other girls in the
house--a resourceful group--and the poor and the powerful of
the town. Trouble erupts one night when a badly injured girl
arrives at their door, beggin sanctuary, followed by the man
who holds her indenture, and who has a machine that can take
over anyone's mind and control their actions. And as if that
wasn't bad enough, the next night brings a body dumped in
their rubbish heap--a streetwalker who has been brutally
murdered.
Bear brings alive this Jack-the-Ripper yarn of the old west
with a light touch in Karen's own memorable voice, and a
mesmerizing evocation of classic steam-powered science.
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