The Old West is generally portrayed as a man’s world in which gunslingers and lawmen do battle at high noon on deserted streets and the role of women—if they have any at all—is to wait pensively at home, get kidnapped by Native Americans, or lounge around saloons in corsets and bloomers.
Luckily, Ann Parker’s award-winning series of crime novels kick against that stereotype and put the iron-willed women of the West at center stage.
Featuring feisty, card-sharping, piano-playing, derringer-wielding heroine, Inez Stannert, this is a gloriously entertaining historical mystery series filled with vivid period detail and a cast of recurring characters that include amongst others: Inez’ runaway husband, an unscrupulous madam, a grimly murderous private eye and a handsome love interest in the shape of a clergyman.
Let's take a look at Ann Parker's Silver Rush Mysteries.
Silver Lies
Shaking off the shackles of a comfortable East Coast upbringing, the well-educated but risk-loving Inez Stannert makes her debut in this mystery set in Colorado during the “silver rush” of 1879.
While thousands flock to the boomtown of Leadville to extract silver from the Rocky Mountains, Stannert is determined to make herself an independent woman of means by running a saloon that caters to the thirsty miners.
However, when one of her customers is found trampled to death, she embarks on an investigation into his murder. The trail leads her from Leadville to Denver where the exclusive parlor houses that cater to the city’s wealthy men prove to hold the key to a bloody mystery.
Iron Ties
A year later, Stannert is still running the Silver Queen Saloon in Leadville alongside her business partner Abe.
She’s hoping for a quiet life that will allow her to get her business and family affairs—her husband Mark has disappeared and their baby is being cared for by her family back East—in order. Things don’t work out as planned, however.
When President Ulysses S. Grant, former leader of the Union Army, decides to visit Leadville to celebrate the completion of the Denver and Rio Grande railroad, it stirs up old enmities and kicks off a series of events that see Stannert’s friend, photographer Susan Carothers, becoming the center of a life-threatening plot.
Leaden Skies
Ulysses Grant is still touring Leadville and Inez Stannert is striking up a backroom deal with local brothel owner Frisco Flo that she hopes will make her wealthy and independent.
Unfortunately, no sooner is the deal done than one of Flo’s girls turns up dead and another is implicated in the slaying.
With the police apparently unconcerned about the death, Inez takes it upon herself to investigate a mystery that may involve a leading local politician and a corrupt cop.
Mercury's Rise
Inez Stannert takes time off from saloon-keeping to visit the fashionable spa town of Manitou with her friend, Susan Carothers. In Manitou, she’ll also be reuniting with her sister and her toddler son.
On the stagecoach to Manitou, one of the passengers dies a grisly death. When his wife begs Inez to investigate, she can’t refuse and soon Inez uncovers the murky world of quack cures and spurious medicine that underpins life in the resort.
The return of Inez’s husband, Mark, proves an added complication.
What Gold Buys
The Fall of 1880 sees Leadville blanketed in snow and the temperatures dropping far below zero. In the dingy back streets of the boomtown, fortune teller Gina Gizzi awaits the arrival of a mysterious benefactor.
When Gina is strangled with a set of corset laces nobody much seems to care, except for the three people who find the body—Inez, her boyfriend Reverend Justice Sands, and Gina’s young daughter, Antonia.
Soon the trio has entered a disturbing world of resurrectionists, ghosts, and vengeance.
A Dying Note
While she still owns a stake in the Silver Queen, Inez Stannert has now relocated to San Francisco where she’s determined to provide a stable life for her new ward, Antonia Gizzi.
She’s turned her entrepreneurial skills and talent as a pianist to good use and is managing a music store owned by a prominent local violinist.
All seems to be going well until the bruised and beaten body of the musician turns up on the banks of Mission Creek, and Inez and Antonia become tangled up in the mystery of his death.
Mortal Music
Inez Stannert’s life in San Francisco seems to be taking a turn for the better when she’s invited to play the piano accompaniment at a recital by celebrated soprano Theia Carrington Drake.
However, Inez soon discovers that life for the diva is not all it seems—somebody is menacing her life. Inez is determined to find out who it is, before the threats turn fatal.
The Secret in the Wall
Inez's continued attempts to build a comfortable life for herself and Antonia in San Francisco hit another bump in the road when the wall of her latest business venture collapses and a skeleton and a bag of old gold coins falls out.
While the police seem more interested in the money than the deceased, Inez is driven to pick up her trusty derringer once again and try to trace the blurred line of evidence that will lead to the killer.
