The Flimflam Affair: A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery

Written by Bill Pronzini
Review by Ellen Keith

This is the seventh installment in the Carpenter and Quincannon series by husband and wife writers Bill Pronzini and Marcia Muller, although this entry and the previous one are credited solely to Pronzini. In 1890s San Francisco, professional detectives, Sabina Carpenter and John Quincannon, follow the previous books’ pattern of embarking on separate cases: Sabina to expose a fraudulent psychic, and John to determine how an impenetrable safe was emptied of its gold.

Sabina is a former Pinkerton agent and John a former Secret Service operative, and their skills complement each other. John has hoped to make their relationship more than professional for some time, and Sabina has begun to reciprocate his affections, but his arrogance in taking all the credit for an investigation she began grates on her. Can John treat her as an equal and regain her respect?

Sabina and John at odds with each other makes for a more uncomfortable read than prior books, but as usual, Gilded Age San Francisco is exquisitely rendered, and the variety of characters Sabina and John encounter are vividly drawn. Both the dedication, “For those who enjoyed the previous six books in the Carpenter and Quincannon series,” and the conclusion make me wonder if this is the last in the series.