The Cheshire Cat S Eye

To tourists, bay-windowed Victorian mansions are quaint, peaceful symbols of old San Francisco, but on the secluded hill above Steiner Street, the gingerbread has sparked a bitter battle. Ambitious developers are pushing for restoration, and residents are fighting for their homes—until a controversial restorationist is found dead on the job, awash in garish house paint. Private investigator Sharon McCone is called in only to discover a second bitter feud, this time between the developers and members of the city's powerful architectural community. As workmen rip through layers of drywall plaster, and wallpaper, McCone unearths an older crime: a cache of stolen antiques comes to light, and a missing one-of-a-kind Tiffany lamp emblazoned with the glowing profile of the Cheshire Cat becomes McCone's most important clue. To catch a killer, she must follow its eerie, knowing grin before its hidden eye foresees a fatal future.

The brash and confident Sharon McCone is plunged into intrigue and murder as her snooping leads her to San Francisco's 'Painted Ladies', the landmark district of gaudily coloured Victorian houses. Responding to her old friend Jake Kaufmann's urgent call, Sharon is shocked to find him dead in a pool of red paint in the house he was restoring. Assuming that his killer will be found among the glamorous, fashionable figures of San Francisco's architectural community, Sharon is embroiled in the internal battles between the matronly, upper-crust preservationists, and the flamboyant defenders of the psychedelic houses. Her investigation narrows to the pursuit of a single, very valuable clue: a one-off Tiffany lamp with the grinning face of the Cheshire Cat emblazoned among the stained-glass leaves. But it is when Sharon herself is implicated in Jake's death that the pressure peaks - and it takes all of her daring to prove her innocence. Love, not money, is the motive for murder in this novel, the third in the Sharon McCone mystery series.

The crime fiction world of the late 1970s, with its increasingly diverse landscape, is a natural beginning for this collection of critical studies focusing on the intersections of class, culture and crime--each nuanced with shades of gender, ethnicity, race and politics. The ten new essays herein raise broad and complicated questions about the role of class and culture in transatlantic crime fiction beyond the Golden Age: How is "class" understood in detective fiction, other than as a socioeconomic marker? Can we distinguish between major British and American class concerns as they relate to crime? How politically informed is popular detective fiction in responding to economic crises in Scotland, Ireland, England and the United States? When issues of race and gender intersect with concerns of class and culture, does the crime writer privilege one or another factor? Do values and preoccupations of a primarily middle-class readership get reflected in popular detective fiction?

In 1977, Marcia Muller invaded the all-male domain of detective literature and within a decade was established as the mother of the female hardboiled private eye. She is now the author of four detective series, including the critically acclaimed Sharon McCone series of more than two dozen novels. This collection critically assesses Marcia Muller's writing and reevaluates current critical views on women's detective fiction in general. In the first two of the book's three sections, essays explore Muller's engagement with modern and postmodern feminism, ethnicity, and the socially underprivileged. The third section focuses on one of Muller's major themes, the trauma of history. Drawing from the feminist, historicist, mythic, psychoanalytic, and cultural approaches found in all three sections, the conclusion offers a panoramic perspective on Muller's accomplishments.

Alice in Wonderland (also known as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), from 1865, is the peculiar and imaginative tale of a girl who falls down a rabbit-hole into a bizarre world of eccentric and unusual creatures. Lewis Carroll's prominent example of the genre of "literary nonsense" has endured in popularity with its clever way of playing with logic and a narrative structure that has influence generations of fiction writing.

In this playful homage to Charles Dickens, Skilley, an alley cat with an embarrassing secret, longs to escape his street-cat life. Hoping to trade London's damp alleyways for the warmth of ye olde Cheshire Cheese Inn, Skilley strikes a bargain with Pip, an erudite mouse. Skilley will protect the mice who live at the inn, and in turn, the mice will provide Skilley with the thing he desires most. But when Skilley and Pip are drawn into a crisis of monumental proportions, their new friendship is pushed to its limits. The escalating crisis threatens the peace not only of the Cheshire Cheese Inn but the entire British Monarchy! New York Times best-selling author Carmen Agra Deedy and coauthor Randall Wright collaborate on this compelling story set in Victorian England. With the artwork of award-winning illustrator Barry Moser, The Cheshire Cheese Cat is filled with charming characters and strong themes of friendship and loyalty.