Professor of horticulture James Yeats Biddle is more comfortable with his tomato plants than with dead bodies—or pretty young women. But when one pretty young woman, reporter Kay Ritchie, hitches a ride in his aged but cherished sports car, Xantippe, he suddenly finds himself very much involved with both. Two Japanese laborers are thrown from a speeding car before their very eyes on the newly constructed Bay Bridge as Kay and James head for a lecture he’s giving to a local woman’s group. That alone wouldn’t be enough to entice James, the youngest professor at Berkeley, to turn detective if it weren’t for the fact that someone is killing the ancient olive trees he helped move to Treasure Island for the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair, the Golden Gate Exposition.

First published in 1940, this long out-of-print mystery offers a nostalgic portrait not only of the fair, with its gaudy buildings and tacky sideshows, but also of a California that has been lost forever to the bulldozers. Join James and Kay as they zip in and out of Berkeley with its “cold, soulless hills” onto the back roads leading  to the open countryside, where the Spanish friars of old built missions and tended olive trees brought in wooden sailing vessels from Spain. Or enjoy a spot of  the San Francisco area night life with them, from  popular hotel dance floors to famous restaurants like Joe DiMaggio’s.

Reviews

“I spent a bit of time on Treasure Island in the 70's, and have always been fascinated by the remnants of what must have been an incredible exposition.  This book captured that feeling for me.  The cover is stunning, and this book is highly recommended, as are all of the Rue Morgue Press reprints.”
—Deadly Pleasures

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