Beginnings

It is early October, 1928. In a case that predates China Basin, and before he and Dilys Jones are married, and before he meets Mickey Kane, the newspaper reporter, and many of the series' regular characters, the private detective investigates the murder of a China Basin warehouse owner, Wallace Briggs, whose death baffles the man's sister and the police. Skeen develops a working relationship with Detective Sergeant Hieronymus of the Mission District precinct. Wallace Briggs had no known enemies, except for his ex-wife, Flora Pritchard, a chorus girl and career goldbricker. Skeen has already established a reputation for solving tough crimes, but the murder of Briggs stymies him for a while. Skeen meets Briggs's sister, Candice. He also meets the shady characters who run Pacific Horizons, a shipping broker with offices on the China Basin docks to whom Briggs was in debt. Skeen does not get to meet Flora Pritchard, Wallace's ex-wife; he discovers her body in her apartment. Skeen determines there is an unholy alliance between many of the principal characters. And he begins to take an interest in Dilys Jones, his reserved and efficient secretary. Beginnings is a "prequel" to the first Skeen novel, China Basin.
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Genre: Historical Mystery