Leaden Skies - Jacket Copy

In the summer of 1880, it’s not just gray skies and bad weather
threatening boomtown Leadville, Colorado. While potential
investment in Leadville’s silver mines has brought former
president and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant to this city at
the top of the Rockies, others in his retinue and in town have
different agendas. Political aspirations fuel the dreams of young
John Quincy Adams Wesley and his mother, while itinerant fire
insurance mapmaker Cecil Farnesworth struggles against the
seductive call of Leadville’s red-light district.

As part owner of the Silver Queen Saloon, Inez Stannert has often
observed the ruination that comes from yielding to temptation.
Still, that hasn’t stopped her from taking Reverend Justice Sands
as her lover. Nor does it stop her from striking a backroom deal
with upscale brothel madam Frisco Flo, a deal that Inez gambles
will make her financially independent.

But when the body of Lizzie, one of Flo’s women, is discovered
and Inez learns that Flo has another silent business partner
whose identity she will not divulge, Inez begins to have second
thoughts. In a race to untangle the dealings of the high and the
low during Grant’s visit, Inez finds herself facing demons from
her past, even as she fights to save her reputation and her life.

Ann Parker earned degrees in Physics and English Literature before
falling into a career as a science writer. The only thing more fun
for her than slipping oblique Yeats references into a fluid dynamics
article is delving into the past. Her ancestors include a Leadville
blacksmith, a Colorado School of Mines professor, and a gandy
dancer. Ann, her husband, two children, and two pet rats reside
near Silicon Valley. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America
and Women Writing the West. Leaden Skies is third in her awardwinning
Silver Rush Mystery series.